Lawmakers and state budget experts on Tuesday framed what is expected to be a lively six-month debate over how to raise billions of dollars in new money for transportation over the next decade.
At a meeting of Gov. Bill Ritter’s special panel on highway and transit finance, key Republican legislators promoted plans that would dedicate new funding streams for fixing Colorado’s battered roads and bridges.
Expressing “great frustration that there was no progress” on transportation finance in the recent legislative session, Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, touted his proposal to dedicate a regular portion of a growing state budget annually to transportation — a measure that could raise about $4 billion over 10 years.
Colorado is one of the few states that do not fund transportation with general-fund dollars, Penry said. Instead, money goes for roads and bridges if there is a “spillover” of surplus dollars, he said.
Putting transportation financing on a par with K-12 education funding would “make transportation a real priority” and help the state begin to funnel more money for road and bridge repair, Penry said.
State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, a co-chairwoman of Ritter’s transportation panel, questioned whether sizable amounts of general-fund money can be earmarked for transportation without damaging other state department budgets.
“The proposal would force substantial cuts in higher education and health care in order to divert funds to transportation and to pay rebates to taxpayers,” she said of Penry’s plan.
Kennedy and other panel members have promoted increases in taxes and fees to raise new money for transportation.
Penry called Kennedy’s concerns about his plan “scare tactics.”
“The notion that more than $30 billion in new money over a decade is not enough” to support nearly $4 billion for transportation “suggests that there never will be enough,” he said.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Reps. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, and Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, promoted Initiative 120, a measure that would tap higher severance-tax revenues for improving Interstate 70.
The initiative, which would not raise severance-tax rates, is somewhat in competition with another proposed initiative that deals with severance tax: Ritter’s plan to take away a tax credit for the oil and gas industry and use the extra money for college scholarships and other programs.
Because the Republicans’ plan is a constitutional amendment, it would at least partly trump Ritter’s statutory proposal if both were approved.
The oil and gas industry opposes Ritter’s initiative.
The only contribution reported in a filing this week by the Republicans’ initiative campaign is a $100,000 gift from Houston-based energy firm Plains Exploration and Production, which has an operation in western Colorado.
McNulty said the Republicans’ initiative is not a stealth attack on the governor’s plan.
“The only thing that you can take from that is they believe in the investment 120 represents,” McNulty said. “We’re out building a broad coalition.”
