FUEL TAX MONEY SIPHONED OFF ROADS

Copyright 2000 Southeast Missourian

Missouri's 6-cent gas tax increase was billed as a way to help fund highway construction. But much of the money didn't go to the highway department, but to other state agencies, a former state senator says.

Only 21 percent of the 6-cent hike in the state fuel tax was projected to go for new highway construction under Missouri's 15-year road plan, said former state senator Emory Melton, a Republican from Cassville.

The rest was earmarked to go to other state agencies, such as the Highway Patrol, and for Missouri Department of Transportation administrative costs, he said.

Melton said the Senate's research staff calculated the percentage at the time the fuel-tax-hike bill was being discussed in the Legislature in 1992. Lawmakers approved the bill that spring.

Melton was a senator at the time when he asked the research staff to do the math.

Melton served 24 years in the Senate before retiring at the end of 1996.

Lawmakers, he said, included in the highway bill a provision that removed legal restrictions on how much gasoline-tax money state agencies other than the Missouri Department of Transportation could receive.

Melton, who questioned the funding plan in 1992, raised the issue again in recent correspondence with Southeast Missourian political columnist Jack Stapleton of Kennett.

Stapleton agrees with Melton's assessment.

"The diversion of gasoline-tax revenue to other state agencies and programs was massive, large enough to doom the 15-year plan to cow-path status in less time than it required highway officials to discover they had a serious problem and they needed to get it off their chests," Stapleton said.

Stapleton said the cap on diverting gas-tax money was in place prior to enactment of the 15-year plan because legislatures in the past had used the money to fund non-highway programs.

"By lifting this restriction, the 1992 law made it easier for lawmakers to fund other programs when there was no money available from any other source," said Stapleton.

Lawmakers, for the most part, said nothing about lifting the funding cap. Neither did MoDOT officials and others in state government, Stapleton said.

Melton and Stapleton said the public thought the 6-cent tax increase was being spent entirely on highway construction.

Since the adoption of the 1992 road plan, fuel-tax revenue has been diverted to the departments of agriculture, economic development, public safety and health, as well as the office of administration and the offices of the state auditor and treasurer, Stapleton said.

Top MoDOT officials in Jefferson City, including the department's chief financial officer, were out of the office Friday and couldn't be reached for comment.

Estil Fretwell, director of public affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, has studied the 15-year funding plan in detail.

Fretwell said some fuel-tax money has gone to other state agencies over the years to pay for highway-related costs.

Lawmakers, he said, knew of the situation when they passed the 15-year plan in 1992.

"Those are the kinds of decisions within the control of the Legislature," he said. Such funding decisions are part of the annual appropriation process.

Melton said lawmakers historically have found ways to tap into fuel-tax money.

In 1987, when lawmakers passed a measure seeking voter approval of Proposition A, a 4-cent hike in the gas tax, the General Assembly capped non-highway funding from the fuel tax.

But with removal of the cap, Melton estimated in 1992 that more than $1 billion would be taken from highway construction and diverted to other state agencies during the life of the 15-year plan.

Melton estimated at the time that half of the 6-cent increase would go to other state agencies. The Senate, he said, rejected an amendment that would have established a new cap to provide $550 million more for highway construction. Melton voted for the amendment, which lost on a 20 to 14 vote.

The state highway commission has scrapped the plan, saying there wasn't enough funding to pay for all the proposed road improvements.

Melton isn't surprised at the funding woes. "It just simply could not work," he said from his Cassville office Saturday.

Eight years ago, Melton criticized the actions of his fellow legislators in allowing money to be diverted from highway projects.

"The general revenue fund is strapped at the moment and legislators are frantic to tap into any money they can find," he said in March 1992. "I am opposed to these tactics of leading the people to believe all the money will be used for roads and highways, when, in fact, it will not."

Melton's view hasn't changed in the ensuing years.

Said Melton, "It was just flat wrong to lead the taxpayers down the primrose path."