Area supervisors unhappy with ‘Time 21’ fund formula

By SCOTT MANTHE

OSKALOOSA — Many southeast Iowa county supervisors are unhappy with the new formula that the Iowa Department of Transportation has developed to distribute the funds from the proposed “Time 21” road fund.

The proposed fund would provide an additional $200 million annually to help offset a projected $27.7 billion shortfall in Iowa road funding over the next 20 years. The $200 million annually would provide funding for the most critical of the state’s road use needs, as identified by the IDOT, and amount to $4 billion over that 20 year period.

This $200 million would be in addition to the money already budgeted to the state’s roads, which is currently approximately $1 billion annually.

According to a study published by the IDOT, the budget shortfall is the result of rising costs for road and bridge maintenance, new construction to meet the needs of an increasingly mobile population, the greater transportation needs of the expanding biofuels industry, the overall aging of the road infrastructure and flat revenues, among other factors.

The IDOT currently distributes revenues to cities and counties based on a Road Use Tax Fund formula, which gives 47.5 percent of the money to the state, for primary roads, like state highways and interstate highways; 32.5 percent goes to the counties, which is used for secondary roads; and 20 percent goes to cities, for municipal roads and city streets.

The Time 21 revenues would be distributed by a different formula, which would send 60 percent of the new funds to the state, 20 percent to the counties and 20 percent to the cities. This new distribution formula would only apply to the new money, not the regular revenue budgeted by the state.

The Mahaska County Board of Supervisors on Monday expressed their concerns about the formula change by passing a resolution, which was sent to area legislators, including State Sens. Tom Reilly and Paul McKinley, State Reps. Eric Palmer, Richard Arnold, along with Geri Huser.

“We just passed as resolution saying we’re in favor of the new money having the same formulation as the old money,” said Board Chair Lawrence Rouw.

He went on to explain why the supervisors are concerned, especially how much of the states road system the counties are responsible for.

“Counties have about eight to nine miles of road for every one mile of road the state has. Traffic is not near as much, but traffic has to get to the state road first,” said Rouw.

He continued, explaining that the counties have to pay just as much for construction and repairs.

“Our cost for construction, our cost to repair our hard surface or replace our hard surface roads has or put in a new hard surface road has went up the same percentage as the what the cost has to the cities or the state to renew theirs, so why do they expect us to be able, on the new money, to get by on considerably less percentage than they’re able to?” wondered Rouw.

Wapello County Supervisor and Iowa State Association of Counties District 5 President Mike Peterson said that District Five, which covers southeastern Iowa, including Mahaska and Wapello counties, voted as group to oppose the change, but they didn’t have much support.

“All the supervisors in the state have considered this resolution, District Five is the only one that is opposing the distribution formula that has been recommended by the state,” said Peterson.

According to Peterson, the state has been vigorous in trying to encourage the counties and cities to accept the new formula.

“What’s unfortunate about this is the state has strong-armed different organizations from the beginning on this formula, and the cities, I might add. It’s been said that if we don’t go along with this, that the counties will receive no money — any new money that’s gotten, the counties will receive none of it. The cities were told that if they didn’t go along with it, they would have to apply for any new money in grant form, rather than going through the road use tax formula. When you have people strong-arming different organizations from the beginning, I’m here to tell you, that’s wrong,” said Peterson.

State Senator Tom Reilly, who chairs the Senate’s Transportation Committee, said the counties make a good case when it comes to the new formula.

“I can understand where they’re coming from, and I think Mike (Peterson) really made a darn good case, as to when you take a look at the road infrastructure. The needs that are there, I think the counties do make a great case, particularly when you take a look at what’s on the horizon, as far as our renewable fuels, biodiesel, ethanol plants,” said Reilly.

But he said that the cities can also make a good case for needing more road funding.

“These nine different cities that I was at ... they were making the exact same case, but it wasn’t the counties it was the cities that were making the case. They were saying we’re not getting enough resources,” said Reilly.

He said the real problem is that there is simply a shortage of money out there, regardless of which formula is used.

“Even if we rework the formula, there still is great concern that regardless of how you cut the formula up, we’re running out of money regardless. And everybody’s in agreement that we do need some sort of an influx of revenue, just to meet new roads, whether it’s at state, county or city level,” added Reilly.

Iowa Department of Transportation Office of Systems Planning Director Stuart Anderson, who helped author the Road Use Tax Fund report, which the Time 21 proposal is based on, said that statewide, the new formula proposed by his report has been accepted.

“The report itself was endorsed by the county organization, the statewide association, the Iowa State Association of Counties and also the Iowa County Engineers Association and the Iowa State Association of County Supervisors. So, as organizations, they’ve endorsed the report and its recommendations, but there have been some counties, primarily in southeastern Iowa that have wanted to do a conditional endorsement, where it’s conditioned on that new money goes through the existing formula,” said Anderson.

He addressed the accusation of strong-armed tactics by explaining that it was necessary to encourage compromise, because there isn’t enough money to meet everyone’s needs, so no one is going to get everything they want.

“I think for an effort like this, where it’s an effort between cities, counties and the state, in trying to look at needs on the roadways and future revenue. ... Every jurisdiction obviously, when you’re in a situation where you have needs that far exceed your revenues, when it comes down to making final recommendations, that’s a challenging part of the process. ... I think it was real important that we tried to get a consensus among cities, counties and the state to those recommendations, because we felt that was most important to, and provided the best opportunity to see these recommendations get serious discussion.”

He continued, “So, from the context of trying to reach a consensus on these, you know, I think the different organizations ... no one feels there’s enough money in this for themselves, I think the belief felt that if everyone can support these recommendations, this would be the best opportunity for getting some serious consideration in the legislature,” said Anderson.

Herald Staff Writer Scott Manthe can be reached by email at manthes@oskyherald.com

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