STATE SHOULD REACH INTO ITS OWN POCKETS FIRST

Sponsored by the Missouri Farm Bureau and the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, another in a series of 18 statewide transportation forums was held here at the Show Me Center last week.

Also present, as he is at most of these events -- to his credit -- was Missouri Department of Transportation director Henry Hungerbeeler.

The message emerging from state chamber and Farm Bureau officials is that Missouri government should reach into its own pocket before it turns to taxpayers for more money to fund transportation projects. So said Michael Grote, assistant director of governmental affairs for the chamber.

Grote said state government spending has been growing by roughly $1 billion annually. In the current fiscal year that started July 1, however, state spending is budgeted to jump by well over $2 billion to a total of more than $19 billion. From 1992 to 2000 -- the Carnahan years -- state employment jumped by 20 percent, or nearly 10,000 employees, to a total of 59,252 state-paid workers.

Not included in this increase is employment at MoDOT, where employment has actually declined slightly. The transportation agency has more than 6,000 employees and currently operates on a $2 billion annual budget. Hungerbeeler says MoDOT needs an additional $1 billion each year to build and repair roads and bridges and fund other transportation needs such as mass transit.

Chamber and Farm Bureau officials claim state government should be pumping more than $300 million from current revenue into road and bridge projects annually. They say we must end the diversion of fuel- and motor-vehicle sales-tax revenue from MoDOT into other departments of state government.

Hungerbeeler stressed that MoDOT plans to save $160 million over five years by delaying filling some positions and cutting other expenses, mostly on the administrative side. He says the savings will provide additional money for transportation projects, but still fall far short of department needs.

Surely most Missourians will agree that state government must do a better job with the resources taxpayers have forked over before asking taxpayers to vote more taxes on themselves.

Anything less is a recipe for defeat at the polls.