Lawmakers considering bill to remove transportation spending from tax lid

A joint legislative task force report on transportation has a lot of promising recommendations for the county, the director of Douglas County Public Works says.

The report released in January made recommendations to guide development of a new state transportation plan and reflected findings from a series of hearings the Joint Legislative Transportation Vision Task Force conducted last fall and summer. The task force’s top recommendations are that the state stop raiding the Kansas Department of Transportation’s state highway fund for revenue to cover other state needs and that the state finish the 21 projects outlined in the 2011 state transportation plan.

With the recognition that local needs outpace available revenue, the task force report also makes a number of recommendations about sharing state highway fund revenue with local governments and suggests the Legislature remove any funding obstacle that hinders local government from spending money to make needed improvements.

“There’s a lot of positives in the report for local governments,” said Keith Browning, Douglas County Public Works director.

Among the recommendations Browning cited as positive is one that is already the subject of legislation introduced this session in the Kansas House and has been referred to the House Taxation Committee. The measure, HB 2368, would remove property tax revenue that local governments spend on road and bridge projects from the state’s tax lid consideration. The state’s tax lid legislation, which became effective in 2017, ties mill levy increases to the rate of inflation except for a few exceptions, such as spending on public safety and bond and interest payments.

Douglas County Commission Chair Michelle Derusseau said she hadn’t read the task force report or reviewed the proposed legislation but, in general, supported any move to give the county more flexibility and options in developing budgets and responding to local needs.

Browning also found encouraging the report’s recommendation that a program that provides state aid for local bridge replacement be reinstated. The program was approved and funded in 2012 before it ended with the diversion of state highway funds for other state needs.

Also positive is the task force’s recommendation that the state continue the current exchange rate that provides local jurisdictions 90 cents from every dollar of federal revenue approved for KDOT-administered projects, Browning said.

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