Gas prices tighten budget for Highway Department
Posted on Thursday, July 3, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/63395/
BENTON COUNTY — Like most everything else, the state’s highway needs are adversely impacted by high gasoline prices, Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department spokesman Randy Ort said Tuesday.
The per-gallon tax on gasoline and diesel fuel accounts for 76 percent of the Highway and Transportation Department’s revenues. The recent decline in motorists’ driving cuts into the dollars available for highway projects, he said.
“ In the month of April 2008 versus April 2007, we saw a 6. 7 percent decrease in revenue from the motor-fuels tax, ” Ort said.
As a result of the Legislature’s passage of the severance tax in 2007, the Highway and Transportation Department’s budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 will be $ 392 million, unchanged from the previous year. Still, that’s not all good, Ort said.
With prices going up for many things, it’s no surprise that prices for many of the items used in highway projects are also on the rise, he said. Costs of fuel and concrete are up, as is the cost of petroleum-based asphalt, among other products, Ort said. All of those costs eat into the funds available for projects, meaning that the completion of some highway projects simply must be stretched out over a longer period of time, he said.
How are specific highway projects likely to be impacted by the tightened budget ? It’s hard to say, but at least projects already in Arkansas’ Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan will be completed before new projects are undertaken, Ort said.