State road plan calls for spending $1.2 billion or more

By Ryan Alessi – ralessi@herald-leader.com

State Rep. Sanny Overly, D-Paris

Details of a project-stuffed state road plan worth between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion began to leak out Wednesday as legislative leaders continued behind-the-scenes negotiations.

House and Senate leaders have taken turns adding and subtracting — but mostly adding — to the list of priority projects that will be paid for through a combination of federal funds, new stimulus package money and as much as $400 million in state-issued bonds, lawmakers confirmed.

Late Wednesday morning, Senate leaders sent back to the House an edited draft of the priority list, which leaders gave to Rep. Sannie Overly, D-Paris and the House transportation budget panel chairwoman, to analyze overnight.

“We wanted to make sure we understood what they did before we talked to our members about it,” said House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg. “We think members will be happy with what they see.”

The Senate version of the road plan changed how some minor bridge projects were funded, Stumbo said.

House lawmakers are expected to get details of projects for their districts Thursday in preparation for a vote on the plan as early as Friday.

They also will be asked to vote on freezing the state’s gas tax at 21.1 cents per gallon. The tax rate was slated to drop about 4 cents on April 1 because of the plunge in wholesale gas prices over the last six months.

Those 4 cents have become essential to the funding of many projects, as well as county and community road construction and maintenance. Nearly half of the revenue generated by those four pennies gets pumped to local governments. Each penny generates roughly $32 million a year.

“If we don’t keep the gas tax at the current level that it is now then there’s no reason to have a road plan because there won’t be any roads,” said Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville and the House Democratic caucus chairman.

Legislative leaders plan to use revenue from about 1.5 cents of the gas tax to pay annual debt costs on $350 million to $400 million worth of state issued bonds that will fund a slew of state road projects, Stumbo said.

The rest of the money for road construction in the plan comes from a variety of sources, including:

■ The recently-approved federal stimulus bill provides $421 million to Kentucky for transportation, of which $367 million can be used for road construction, Overly said. Of that, half must be spent on building projects within 120 days of the money’s release, while the rest must go toward projects that are ready to go within the year.

■ The General Assembly freed up $221 million last year by moving around potential bridge funding to use federal Garvey bonds for state roads.

■ And Kentucky is slated to get about $400 million from its regular federal transportation department allotment, Overly said.
Overly, a lawyer and former Transportation Cabinet engineer, said the Senate’s revised version of the road plan isn’t drastically different than what House leaders put together last week.

Projects that are almost assured to be in the final draft of the road plan include the Newtown Pike extension in Lexington, which is expected to cost at least $9 million. That project is a key component of Lexington’s preparations for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park.

“That’s the number one priority of the Fayette County delegation,” said Overly, who represents a slice of the northern part of the county. “I think you’re going to see that done out of the stimulus money.”

Overly also said widening of the Bourbon County bypass, which is currently a mix of two and four lanes, will be in the plan. And some money might be tagged to fund “very preliminary” planning and design work for a road to connect Jessamine County to I-75 in Madison County, she said.

Lawmakers will likely spend much of Thursday checking the list to see if projects they’ve been pushing will get funded over the next 16 months.

Rep. Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown and the House Republican leader, said he hoped to share the details of each county’s projects with GOP lawmakers individually.

“It certainly will create jobs and get some road projects done that need to be done,” he said. “Our guys just want to look at it and weigh the benefits of it and the disadvantages.”