Topeka ? A Republican proposal designed to save highway projects from being canceled cleared a House committee Thursday, even though the state’s top transportation official said it’s unrealistic.

The Transportation Committee endorsed a bill that would allow the state to issue $150 million in bonds, set aside $393 million in sales tax revenues over three years and use federal funds to shore up the state’s comprehensive transportation program.

Transportation Secretary Deb Miller has said if no bill passes this year, she will have to cancel $150 million worth of projects this summer and an additional $100 million each year into 2008. The projects have not been specified, but they would be among those promised to communities when the transportation program began in 1999.

The bill, drafted by Republican leaders in both chambers and endorsed on a voice vote, assumes the state will receive $300 million in additional funds over six years to help shore up its transportation program.

But Miller told the committee before it voted that such an assumption was unrealistic. Afterward, she said that even if Congress comes through with the extra money for Kansas, many of the dollars are likely to be earmarked for specific uses, making them unavailable for the state’s transportation program.

“It’s a fantasy,” to think the state will get enough unrestricted federal funds, Miller said.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, proposed issuing $465 million in bonds and setting aside $264 million in sales tax revenues to shore up the highway program. Her plan made no assumptions about additional federal dollars.

But many Republicans objected to the amount of bonds in Sebelius’ plan. Transportation Committee Chairman Gary Hayzlett said Republicans settled on $150 million after testing support for a bond issue among their colleagues.

“If we raise the amount of bonding, we’re likely to lose the battle,” said Hayzlett, R-Lakin.

Rep. Bruce Larkin, D-Baileyville, proposed allowing the state to issue up to $100 million more in bonds if federal funds were less than expected. But Hayzlett said many House members would not accept the additional bonding, and Larkin’s amendment failed.

KDOT has estimated the gap between available revenues and promised spending at $775 million into 2009, absent passage of a plan this year.

In setting up the transportation program in 1999, legislators promised to dedicate ever-increasing amounts of sales tax revenues to highway projects. But they quickly began diverting the revenue to other government programs as other funding sources declined, and no sales tax money was set aside for transportation in 2003 and 2004.

Both Sebelius and GOP leaders proposed resuming the sales tax set-aside in 2006 at $50 million. But the GOP plan calls for the set-aside to jump to $168 million in 2007, whereas the Sebelius plan increased it to only $105 million.

Transportation funding is HB 2918.

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