Legislators question road project funding

The finance committee will review four budgets at the end of June.
By MARC KOVAC
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- Representatives questioned administration officials about funding for local road projects and potential increases to gasoline prices during a hearing concerning Gov. Ted Strickland's proposed budgets for transportation and public safety.
Legislators voiced concerns Thursday after formal testimony before the House's Finance and Appropriations Committee by J. Pari Sabety, director of the Office of Budget and Management.
The finance committee will review a total of four budgets before the end of June.
"This committee is going to be busy," chairman Matt Dolan, a Republican from Novelty, said in opening the session.
The budgets presented by the governor outline nearly 8 billion in spending -- 3.9 billion for fiscal 2008 and 3.8 billion for 2009, the coming biennium. About 80 percent of those totals will go to the Ohio Department of Transportation, with much of the remainder devoted to the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Reassessment
Strickland's budget bill calls for a "top-to-bottom reassessment" of major new construction projects and criteria used in determining those projects by the Transportation Review Advisory Council.
The governor has said the council has made commitments to community road projects without adequate finances to cover the costs.
Rep. Jay Hottinger, a Republican from Newark, asked about current projects in the TRAC process and whether some could lose funding as a result of the review.
"What sort of assurances can you give us about existing major projects that are going on throughout the state of Ohio today?" Hottinger asked.
Steve Campbell, chief of staff at ODOT, testified that the 2007 budget for new projects includes spending of about 800 million, with 1.3 billion sought for the new biennium. The reassessment of TRAC will take into account projects that are already in the pipeline or under construction. "We are going to try to be as least disruptive as possible," Campbell said.
Shrinkage allowance
Several lawmakers questioned Sabety about a proposed decrease in the so-called gasoline evaporation and shrinkage allowance, which allows fuel wholesalers and retailers to deduct a small percentage from their sales totals reported to the state.
Sabety said it is the administration's intent to hold retailers harmless with the change; their allowance (currently 0.65 percent) will not be changed.
Wholesalers, however, will see a reduction of their allowance to 0.35 percent from the current 1.95 percent. The current rates are down from 2.5 percent allowed for wholesalers and 0.83 percent for retailers as of mid-2005, according to statistics compiled by the state. The rates were to be increased to 3 percent in the next two-year period.
The decrease proposed by the governor would generate about 38 million during the next two years for both ODOT and the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
The latter would use the influx to cover a projected 29 million shortfall in the budget of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.