DALLAS — Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy proposed a 30-year, $100 billion transportation program in a budget address Wednesday to a joint session of the General Assembly that left unresolved how to pay for the transit and highway projects in the proposal.
New revenue sources will have to be found or existing ones must be expanded, Malloy said.
"If we want to transform our infrastructure over the next 30 years, it will require additional decisions on how we're going to pay for it," he said.
The first step in a funding solution is a five-year, $10 billion, mostly transit infrastructure program that includes $2.8 billion of new capital funding, Malloy said.
The second part of the process is creating a constitutional transportation lockbox to ensure that revenues dedicated to roads, bridges, and transit are actually allocated for those purposes, he said.
Step three is determining where to find the revenues needed to accomplish the ambitious 30-year program beyond the initial $10 billion, five-year phase, Malloy said.
Malloy said he will meet with leaders of both parties in the General Assembly in the next few weeks before appointing a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission on transportation funding.
"They will have a single, narrow goal: offering recommendations for a sustainable structure to fund transportation over the next 30 years and beyond," he said.
The state has been neglecting its transportation infrastructure for too long, Malloy said.
"We cannot afford to repeat history," he said. "I will not repeat history."
In a briefing to reporters before the governor's address, budget director Benjamin Barnes said funding for the first five years of the transportation proposal includes the sale of $1.75 billion of state general obligation bonds in fiscal 2016 and another $1.8 billion of GO bonds in 2017.
"We're going to be borrowing more and spending more to complete more [projects]," he said.
Connecticut's $15 billion of outstanding GOs are rated Aa3 by Moody's Investors Service and AA by Fitch and Standard & Poor's.
The five-year plan could be funded initially with existing state revenues but would require a general fund transfer of $120 million by fiscal 2018, Barnes said.
The new projects in the capital budget include $1.75 billion for rail, $612.5 million for highways, $281.3 million for bridges, and $100 million for hike and bike trails.
Funding for the $10 billion program includes $6.6 billion of state revenues and $3.4 billion of federal grants.
"There are a number of possible revenue sources that could be put into place, and the governor will be working with lawmakers on that," he said.
Rep. Tony Guerrera, the Democratic co-chairman of the General Assembly's transportation committee, said additional tolls should be part of the funding discussion.
"The additional revenue is not going to come from the gasoline tax and it isn't going to fall from the sky," he said. "The federal government is not going to help because Congress will never again pass an increase in the gasoline tax."
Connecticut fuel taxes include a gasoline tax of 25 cents per gallon and an 8.1% sales tax.
Sen. Toni Boucher, the ranking Republican on the joint transportation committee, rejected the inclusion of tolls in the potential funding mix.
Tolls are an unreliable, volatile source of funding for long-term projects, she said. "There's a lot of opposition out there to funding," Boucher said. "People see tolls as another tax."
Republican lawmakers proposed a $37 billion, 30-year transportation program last week with no tolls. Funding in the plan includes state GO bonds and special tax obligation bonds supported by the state gasoline tax and other transportation-related levies.
Malloy said the Republican plan is not viable.
"They've embarrassed themselves," he said when the plan was unveiled. "Their transportation plan doesn't have a single transportation project. Let's agree that's not a plan."
