TxDOT’s Record Roadwork

Texas Department of Transportation officials said last week the state will spend a record $5.9 billion on road projects in fiscal 2010, followed by another $5 billion in fiscal 2011.

TxDOT spent between $4 billion and $5 billion a year between 2003 and 2006, but fiscal 2008 expenditures totaled only $3 billion. The agency will receive $2.25 billion in federal stimulus funds over the next two years.

Texas in the past had relied on pay-as-you-go financing for road projects after the state highway department was established in 1917. However, changes in the state law since 2001 have resulted in debt authorizations for TxDOT that total almost $17 billion.

The total includes $2 billion of bonds approved by the Legislature in the 2009 session that would be supported by general revenue rather than fuel tax revenue, and $3 billion of fuel-tax revenue bonds. The state has issued $2.9 billion of fuel tax bonds since 2000.

However, TxDOT chief financial officer James Bass said flat gas tax revenue mean the department will need an additional $120 million beginning in the 2012-13 budget for debt support on the $3 billion of fuel tax bonds. TxDOT intends to ask the next Legislature — which will not meet in regular session until 2011 — for another $2 billion of bonds supported by general fund ­revenues.

Voters approved the support of highway debt from the general fund as a constitutional amendment in 2007. The 2009 Legislature also halted the diversion of $365 million of fuel tax revenue every two years to non-transportation uses.

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