DALLAS – Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam will ask lawmakers for an increase in the state's gasoline tax to fund transportation needs when the General Assembly convenes in 2017, the state's top highway official said Wednesday.
The gasoline tax bill will be introduced early in the session that begins in January after a similar effort failed to gain traction in the 2016 session, said Transportation Commissioner John Schroer.
"There are a lot of ways to raise transportation revenues, but the biggest way is to raise the gas tax," Schroer told local officials at a briefing in Kingsport, Tenn. "The bill will provide for long-term sustainable funding for transportation.
"But it's hard for us to tell if the legislature will be in favor of something that hasn't been proposed yet," he said.
Schroer urged the local officials to back Haslam's gas tax plan and to spread the word about the need for additional infrastructure funding.
"I call upon you, when the time comes, to convince people that raising transportation revenue is an investment," he said. "When the governor presents the bill — which will happen relatively soon — it will be easy for the legislature to vote yes."
Tennessee needs more long-term, sustainable revenue sources for transportation in addition to the gasoline tax, Schroer said.
Fuel tax revenues face an inevitable decline as vehicles become more fuel efficient and more electric cars hit the street, he said.
"I don't think we are going to do a hotel/motel tax, but I do think we are going to look at other options," he told the local officials.
Tennessee's gasoline tax of 21.4 cents per gallon has not been increased since 1989.
The state has a transportation project backlog of $6.1 billion, with another $5.3 billion funding shortfall for proposed projects not yet underway, according to the latest estimate by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
Haslam and Schroer held public meetings across the state in November 2015 in an effort to build support for a proposal to raise the gas tax in the 2016 session, but the governor later ruled out a fuel tax increase due to legislative opposition.
A higher gasoline tax would be preferable to toll roads or a vehicle-miles-traveled road fee charge, Haslam said in January.
Tennessee will be hard-pressed to remain economically competitive with states in the region that have increased their funding for transportation, Schroer said Wednesday.
"This year, I only had $30 million to fund projects that can bring in jobs," he said. "I can't do that much longer when competing with other states."
North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and other states have taken steps in recent years to increase their transportation funding while Tennessee has not, Schroer said.
"We are one of five states that have done absolutely nothing to fund transportation," he said. "I don't want to be a state that does absolutely nothing."
Local officials in neighboring Arkansas said they need $750 million to make critical repairs to obsolete bridges and to restore once-paved county roads that have been converted to gravel paths due to inadequate state highway funding.
The study commissioned by the County Judges Association of Arkansas identified 1,200 bridges that are structurally deficient and 50,000 miles of substandard county roads.
White County, Ark. Judge Michael Lincoln said he is responsible for maintaining 4,000 miles of local roads from an annual budget of only $8 million.
"We are in a crisis in this country," Lincoln said. "People ought to be talking about the crisis that our infrastructure is in. We ought to propose taxation that is dedicated to rebuilding infrastructure."
