House passes $365 million transportation budget; lawmaker says more money needed

DES MOINES - A $365.2 million budget for the Iowa Department of Transportation sailed through the Iowa House Tuesday with little opposition, but a warning that lawmakers will have to address transportation funding - again.

The 10-cents-a-gallon increase in the state fuel tax lawmakers approved in February wasn't reflected in the budget, but a longtime transportation advocate told colleagues the tax hike won't solve transportation funding problems for long.

Approved 93-2, House File 637 appropriated $365.2 million to the DOT for fiscal 2016. That includes $49.9 million from the Road Use Tax Fund (RUTF) and $315.3 million from the Primary Road Fund. The 1.9 percent increase funds the equivalent of 2,872 full time positions, according to floor manager Rep. Dan Huseman, R-Aurelia.

For fiscal 2017, it appropriates $181.6 million - 50 percent of the 2016 appropriation. It now goes to the Senate.

After nearly three decades, the Legislature approved the fuel tax increase to provide about $200 million a year more to address what the DOT calls 'critical needs.” The increase, which took effect March 1, is expected to push the DOT's construction budget above $700 million this year. Last year, the construction budget was $656 million.

HF 637 doesn't address construction, however.

That didn't stop Rep. Dennis Cohoon, D-Burlington, from telling colleagues they will need to look at another transportation funding increase 'sooner rather than later.” Based on a Legislative Services Agency fiscal analysis, he said the new revenue stream will begin to decrease in about 2.5 years.

'And with more fuel efficient cars and alternative energy vehicles and, hopefully, better roads, raising the fuels tax in the future won't bring in enough revenues,” Cohoon said. 'You could raise it a little bit, but another 10 cents would not bring in as much as it did this time.”

He didn't endorse any new funding mechanism, but said all options should be on the table including tolls, privatizing roads, taxes based on miles driven and fees on electric cars.

He also suggested asking whether Iowa has too many miles of roads and too many bridges. Cohoon would also look at the way road use funds are distributed to counties and cities that maintain a majority of the 114,000-mile road network.

Among the increases in the 2016 budget are $1.3 million to raise Motor Vehicle Division funding to $37.4 million and $1.3 million to increase the Operations Division budget to $46.6 million.

It also includes a new appropriation of $300,000 to support the Traffic and Criminal Software (TraCS) and Mobile Architecture for Communications (MOCs) Handling software programs. TraCS is a system that

collects traffic crash data from all around the state. MOCs, which initially was funded by the federal government, is an information sharing system available to all public safety agencies. It handles a

variety of information, including Amber Alerts, he said.