Iowa House reduces funding for printed road maps

The growth in use of smartphones, navigational units and other GPS technology, and the pursuit of government efficiency likely will result in fewer Iowa roads maps.

The Iowa House voted Tuesday to reduce funding for state road maps, a savings of about $240,000 in the $351 million state transportation budget, which was approved 92-2.

“It's not going to make or break the budget,” said Rep. Dan Huseman, R-Aurelia, floor manager for Senate File 2314, but his Republican caucus saw it as an opportunity for savings.

The Iowa Department of Transportation had 1.4 million maps printed at 13 cents apiece in 2012. Due to the cut, it will print about 800,000, a spokeswoman for the department told Huseman.

The savings are small, but significant, Appropriations Committee Chairman Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale said.

“If we can save some money, those dollars will stay in the Road Use Tax Fund for building roads,” he said. “It's not going to be building miles and miles and miles of roads, but for the mile or two that those dollars save or help build that's one or two more miles that get done each year rather than having maps sitting in a warehouse.”

Raecker and Huseman said demand for paper maps has declined.

However, Elizabeth Baird of the DOT said travelers still expect maps to be available.

“Even with navigational units, smartphones with GPS, online maps and other technology that readily available, the transportation map provides a quality up-to-date product that is still valuable to the consumer,” she wrote to Huseman. The road maps not only assist motorists get from Point A to Point B as well as “determine what Iowa treasures in between can be visited.”

Iowans won't have to go without maps, Raecker said, but reducing the number printed “will reduce the number of maps that sit in boxes in warehouses.”

About 640,000 maps are distributed to rest stops. Others go to DOT offices, other governmental offices including the governor's office and Legislature. Many lawmakers distribute maps at parades and forums.

The House also reduced funding utilities and for fixing truck scales by $200,000.

SF 2314 appropriates a total of $350.8 million to the DOT. It includes $47.6 million from the RUTF, $303.2 million from the Primary Road Fund for a net increase of $4.9 million.

In other action, the House:

• Approved SF 2313 59-37 to appropriate $56.8 million from the general fund for the Administration and Regulation FY13 budget. This is an increase of $4.1 million. It also appropriates a total of $50.7 million from other funds, a decrease of $3.1 million. Several amendments by minority Democrats were rejected.
• Approved SF 2312 95-1. It is part of the mental health and developmental disability redesign that makes several changes in the treatment of people with mental illness as it relates to the judicial process. It covers transportation, the mental health civil commitment process, jail diversion programs and the role of county mental health patient advocates.
• Passed SF 2153 95-0 to expand the state commercial highway network by 100 miles – the length of Highway 63 between Oskaloosa and Waterloo.