County picks up roads where TxDOT left off

County picks up roads where TxDOT left off

Written by Shannon Colletti and Mark Collins Friday, 20 June 2008

The Texas Department of Transportation announced funding rescissions in February that will impact several road projects in the area. Some projects are not affected, others will be delayed, and still others might get under way, but will have to use alternative funding.

“All I know is we lost a ton of money,” Williamson County Commissioner Ron Morrison said. “It’s a big blow. Everybody is shuffling, trying to figure out what we can do.”

What the cuts mean

Morrison said the county will prioritize which projects get addressed first.

“All of the projects will probably be finished,” he said. “They just may not be finished on the schedule we’d planned on.”

Williamson County Commissioner Lisa Birkman said it is up to the cities and county to determine if they are going to put dollars toward state highway projects — something they are not obligated to do.

“It’s a policy decision for us and the cities to decide if we want to do that,” she said. “I think the consensus is, at least in the county, we can’t build and rebuild every state highway in Williamson County. It would bankrupt us, and the tax rate would be unbelievably high. But in certain areas, there is so much demand and need that we need to go ahead and step in.”

US 183

One funding mechanism Williamson County is making use of is pass-through financing, a program initiated by TxDOT in 2006 that allows a third party to provide funding for a roadway project in order to accelerate progress. TxDOT will then reimburse the third party over a period of time based on how many vehicles use the road.

Williamson County entered into such an agreement to finance the right of way acquisition and construction costs of widening US 183 between Hwy. 29 and the Toll 183A intersection. The project will separate north and southbound lanes with a large median similar to the Toll 183A frontage roads.

“We are trying to make sure that if, at some point in time, the TxDOT money starts flowing again that we get reimbursed,” Williamson County Commisioner Cynthia Long said. “We want it to be as fair to our taxpayers as possible, but we are just growing so fast we have to make road improvements.”

Williamson County has two other pass-through financing agreements with TxDOT: the Williams Drive project in Georgetown and Hwy. 79 between Hutto and Taylor.

“With a county growing as fast as Williamson County, we agree we have to get these roads taken care of whatever way we can do it,” Long said. “Especially with all the budget cuts, we were thankful the three pass-through projects were not affected.”

FM 2243 realignment

There will be no construction timeline for the realignment of FM 2243 between US 183 and IH 35 until TxDOT’s budget review process comes to an end, according to TxDOT spokesperson Marcus Cooper.

“There have been no canceled projects,” Cooper said. “However, what has happened is a slow down in the planning and design of some projects.”

The realignment is expected to transform FM 2243 into a six-lane divided roadway that would reduce to four lanes through the Transit-Oriented Development. Environmental assessments are being completed, and the design process is under way.

In the interim, Williamson County is looking into adding protective left-hand turn lanes at the intersections of CR 273, CR 175 and CR 176.

“At the end of the day, the citizens really look to us, and they don’t know whether it is a TxDOT road or a city road or a county road,” Long said. “They want us to fix it, and so that is what we are going about doing.”

Reasons for the cuts

Chris Lippincott, spokesman for the government and public affairs division of TxDOT, cited several reasons for the cuts, calling them an “unfortunate convergence of events.”

“The bottom line is for fiscal year 2008, [which began] in February, we [stopped] our construction program. $1.1 billion worth of construction projects in Texas will be delayed for the balance of the fiscal year,” Lippincott said. “This is a difficult situation for everyone. We recognize that, and we’re going to do everything we can to work with local authorities to help them make the most of the revenues they have.”

In the last two years, the federal government has issued $666 million of rescissions in a previously promised federal contract for the State of Texas. Lippincott said TxDOT anticipates nearly $950 million in additional rescissions by 2009.

Another issue at the federal level is that the Highway Trust Fund is quickly reaching a point of fiscal crisis, and it is expected that as early as next year, it will begin to run negative balances, Lippincott said.

Several factors have influenced TxDOT at the state level as well. During its last session, the legislature moved $1.5 billion from the state highway fund to pay for other state priorities over fiscal year 2009 and also put restrictions on access to private sector investment, Lippincott said.

Lippincott cited inflation as another reason for the cuts. In the last five years, highway construction costs have increased 62 percent. This can partially be attributed to the rising costs of materials used to build roads — concrete, steel and asphalt, a petroleum product — as well as rising engineering and right-of-way costs. The historically high cost of gasoline also plays a part.

The need to increase funding for maintenance of the state’s highways, which are showing wear and tear, is yet another reason for the cuts, according to Lippincott. He also said overly optimistic assumptions by TxDOT, including the overestimation of growth in future federal transportation authorization bills, have tightened TxDOT’s belt.

TxDOT projected 2008 budget

TxDOT’s building budget was $4.2 billion in 2007 and has dropped to $3.1 billion in 2008. This means that certain portions of the projected revenues have not met projections and, therefore, planned projects are being delayed.

Projected revenues*

• Bond proceeds: $745 mil
• Gas tax: $2.2 bil
• Federal funds: $3.3 bil
• Texas Mobility Fund: $1.4 bil
• Vehicle registration: $1 bil
• Other: $325 mil

Projected expenses*

• Planning - $1.5 billion
  • Planning and design
  • Acquisition of R.O.W.
  • Research
• Building - $3.1 billion
  • Transportation
  • Construction
  • Aviation
• Maintainance - $2.9 billion
  • Contracted maintenance
  • TxDOT maintenance
• Use - $325 million
  • Public and medical transportation
  • Registration and titling
  • Regulation of motor vehicle dealers
  • Traffic safety
  • Travel information centers
  • Auto theft prevention
  • Rail safety
• Management - $185 million
  • Central administration
  • Support services

Source: Texas Department of Transportation

*All figures are approximations

How the gas tax works

The gas tax, last adjusted in the early ‘90s, constitutes a sizable portion of the Texas Department of Transportation’s revenue. In Texas, for every gallon of gas that is bought, $0.20 goes toward the state gas tax and $0.184 goes toward the federal gas tax, for a total of $0.384 per gallon.

State level - The state gas tax is $0.20/gallon. If gas were $1.00 gallon, a customer putting $5.00 of gas in his car would generate $1.00 of state gas tax. That $1.00 goes to the state comptroller, and $0.25 goes to the Permanent School Fund. Of the remaining $0.75, roughly $0.20 of it is used to pay for other state priorities such as DPS and TEA. The final $0.55 goes to TxDOT.

Federal level - For every $1.00 of federal g as tax generated that goes to Washington, D.C., about $0.08 comes back to Texas for transit and $0.70 comes back for highways.

Source: Chris Lippincott, TxDOT