WHERE DID YOUR FUEL-TAX DOLLARS GO? SURPRISE! NOT TO HIGHWAYS

Warning: Reading this column may be hazardous to your peace of mind --or worse.

By now even semiconscious citizens of Missouri know we have a major highway problem or, to be more exact, a problem in financing the construction of new roads to meet current and increasing traffic. To put it succinctly, the state doesn't have enough revenue -- on hand or anticipated -- to cover the promised projects of the 15-year plan enacted more than eight years ago.

I'm not certain who originally discovered the fatal flaw in this multibillion-dollar state project, and for all I know he could have suffered the fate of past bearers of bad news. His or her name isn't as important as the fact someone in our state capital had sufficient honesty and integrity to disclose it to the rest of us blissfully unaware citizens.

The first truth is the 15-year plan's financial miscalculations should have been discovered long before they were, but the lapse is understandable, if regrettable.

The second truth is that many of the participants in the funding arrangements of the huge program must also have harbored some suspicion back on Feb. 20, 1992, when then-Gov. John Ashcroft signed into law the road plan and its imposition of a gasoline tax increase from 11 to 17 years per gallon.

The third truth is that the road plan and tax increase bill that made its way through the General Assembly was never detailed, much less fully explained, to the citizens of Missouri by any of the involved officials in Jefferson City. Full disclosure was not made by officials of the highway department, who had no inkling how the bill would fare in the Legislature before sending it to the Capitol's third floor for debate and enactment. Furthermore, the details were not disclosed by any members of the General Assembly, save one or two who are no longer in General Assembly, save one or two who are no longer in office, nor were they mentioned by Governor Ashcroft when he signed on to the proposal. To my knowledge no members of the news media, including this writer, ever wrote a single word concerning a critical component of the plan.

Here's what was never mentioned by any of the guilty parties just named: The 15-year road plan law removed legal restrictions on how much gasoline-tax revenue state agencies other than the highway department could receive. The restriction was in place before enactment of the 15-year plan because legislatures in the past had often diverted fuel-tax revenue to fund other nonhighway programs. By lifting this restriction, the 1992 law made it easier for lawmakers to fund other programs when there was no money available form any other source.

With the so-called cap removed, our elected officials decided to divert as much as one-half of the 6-cent fuel-tax increase to other state agencies over the span of 15 years. As the former official who revealed these facts to me noted, the public perception was that all of the 6-cent increase would go to the 15-year plan.. This is accurate. The public did believe all of the new tax revenue would be earmarked for the proposed building program that was designed to reduce fatal accidents in the state by half, thereby saving thousands of lives and averting hundreds of thousands of accidents.

To be perfectly candid, I'm not certain even if the public had known these facts back in 1992 it would have made much difference, given the euphoria that accompanied the promises of much improved highways and lowered traffic fatalities and mishaps throughout the state. No one really knows.

With the public focused on the plan's benefits and the news media focused on little more than the usual political battles that are routine in the state Capitol, the plan traveled back to the highway department building as a new law. And all of us unaware bystanders sat back and waited for the superhighways to be poured.

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.

Since the 1992 road plan was approved, gasoline-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 state treasurer. Other road-plan revenue has gone for supplementary appropriations to get cash-poor agencies out of hock near the end of past fiscal years, for capital improvements including new buildings and repairs of existing structures, and for state employees' fringe benefits.

And finally, the worst truth of all: When the 1992 bill was enacted and signed into law, staff members of the state Senate's research staff discovered that even with the 6-cent tax increase, only 21 percent of the increase would go for new highway constructions proposed in the 15-year road plan.

It is quite possible that a fully informed public would have demanded a more realistic approach to highway development and would have supported efforts to increase state funding to meet the costs of other agencies' programs. It is also possible that the intent of the state to divert fuel-tax revenue to other sources would have been subjected to a constitutional review and perhaps even thrown out by the courts.

One concluding truth is clear: Had Missourians been told the facts of the state's intentions, we would not be facing today's unpleasant prospects of multibillion-dollar bond issues and their additional high interest costs that many are proposing to pass on to future generations.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.