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ITD's JFAC presentation – A media perspective

Excerpts from newspaper coverage of Thursday's JFAC presentation

Spokane Spokesman Review
… the Idaho Transportation Board is recommending dramatic fee increases 75 percent boosts in vehicle registration and permit fees, a 7 percent surcharge on gas, new development impact fees, fees on rental cars, and more.

Four of those fee-increase bills were introduced Thursday in the Senate Transportation Committee, but Chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, said they were introduced "just for discussion."

"The governor made it quite clear in his State of the State address that he's not interested in seeing these on his desk this year, but they deserve to be heard about," McGee said.

Betsy Russell (Spokesman Review) Blog
Lowe should ask for a bonus: Pamela Lowe, the new ITD director, flew calmly through 48 pages of slides, charts, graphs, tables and solid information about everything that’s going on at the state Transportation Department in her presentation to JFAC this morning, and then, when members asked her extensive questions for close to another two hours, she came up with more charts and graphs along with firm, candid and detailed answers, often including specific examples. “I’d ask for a bonus if I were you,” Rep. Fred Wood told her. “You’ve had the hardest job here in front of JFAC, and I thank you for your candor in your presentation.”

Associated Press
Old pavement. Older bridges. Too many cars.

That's the situation Idaho finds itself in, Department of Transportation Director Pamela Lowe told lawmakers Thursday, as she defended her agency's budget request for nearly $790 million in fiscal year 2008. It includes $264 million in bond proceeds for the second installment of Connecting Idaho, the largest road-building project in state history.

In 2007, the budget was $700 million, including $200 million borrowed for Connecting Idaho. The agency is responsible for maintaining thousands of miles of roads, 1,761 bridges and aviation infrastructure across 84,000-square-mile Idaho.

Though Lowe's request covers the fiscal year starting in July, much of her presentation was devoted to the future - 2010 specifically - when she expects Idaho's share of Federal Highway Administration money to shrink to 2006 levels. The Idaho Transportation Board has recommended seven fee or tax increases to cover an expected annual $200 million shortfall as money from Washington, D.C., begins to dwindle.

The Idaho Statesman
Idaho Transportation Department officials told lawmakers Friday morning they have spent only $10 million of last year's $200 million in Connecting Idaho funding.

Connecting Idaho is a way to leverage federal highway funding by bonding future dollars for today's road building projects. With construction costs escalating faster than inflation, it saves the state money and speeds up the projects.

ITD said it hoped to have most of the money out in contracts by the fall, and is still requesting $264 million in funding for next year.

But ITD officials also said they can manage more of the bonding in-house, saving money on $18 million earmarked for contracting and putting it toward building roads. The total project has the state bonding $998 million with a total estimated cost of $1.5 billion by 2025.

Members of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee asked ITD officials Friday morning whether they should slow down the bonding given the slow start on programs.
ITD director Pamela Lowe said the department needed to have money in hand in order to get contracts for the road-building project, but admitted the project had been off to a very slow start. Lowe also delivered the good news that ITD would be able to save money earmarked for design work by outside contractors, including Boise's Washington Group International, by doing more work in-house.

JFAC lawmakers said they appreciated Lowe's transparency but would be carefully considering whether the full $264 million should be made available for the project next year.