Despite criticism, Gov. Bobby Jindal has taken $48 million that would have been used on roads and bridges and used it instead to plug this year’s budget deficit.
The Associated Press reports the maneuver, backed by lawmakers on the joint House and Senate budget committee, got little public discussion and came after months of election campaign promises that such sidetracking of roadwork money should end.
The Jindal administration says diverting the transportation money helped shield public colleges and other services from deep cuts. Nearly all the money, about $46 million, came from the Transportation Trust Fund that contains state gasoline and fuel tax income. The remaining sliver of cash came from vehicle registration as well as license fees and taxes.
Combined with the earlier use of transportation money to pay for state police this year, $93 million initially earmarked for road repairs, highway upgrades and other infrastructure needs will be spent on other government operations.
Critics of the latest diversion of transportation funds say the budget maneuver received too little debate and damages the state’s ability to chip away at a $12 billion backlog of road and bridge needs.
“The administration saw that was an easy grab for them,” says Ken Perret, a retired assistant state transportation secretary and president of the Louisiana Good Roads and Transportation Association, an advocacy group.
Lawmakers have said they disagree with steering gas tax dollars away from road and bridge work. But Jindal has won support for diverting $286 million of such money to state police operations since 2011. That’s not counting the additional money just approved by the joint budget committee to pay for general government operations.
