Missouri lawmakers said last week they will talk about more funding for the state's highway system - although they don't know what final proposal might succeed.
The recent flooding didn't help the Missouri Transportation department's budget, either, as MoDOT had to close nearly 300 roads - including sections of three different interstate highways - creating extra funding problems for an agency already working on a very tight budget that can only pay for maintaining some of the state's more-traveled roads.
Friday, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provided Missouri with $1 million in emergency relief funds to repair flood-damaged roads and bridges.
The FHWA said the money comes as "quick release" funds from the agency's Emergency Relief program and is intended for MoDOT to begin repair work, further assess damages and begin to restore traffic to normal conditions, even as the state continues its work in assessing its total repair needs.
Eventually, new MoDOT Director Patrick McKenna said last week, Missouri will have to apply through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for funds to cover the state's costs of rebuilding flood-damaged roads and bridges - an application that will likely be competing with requests from other states, which also have experienced storm damage.
"We have to pay up-front" and then be reimbursed, McKenna said. "Sometimes, it can take three, five or seven years - and, typically, two-three years."
The Federal Highway funds only help with federal roads, such as interstates and highways - like U.S. 50, 54 and 63. The FEMA funds will reimburse the state at about 75 cents for every dollar spent in emergency repairs, leaving the state paying about 25 percent of the costs from its own depleted funds, he said.
However, that money will only help address the flood-caused emergency, which won't help resolve the state's other long-term needs from having the seventh largest state-owned road-and-bridge system in the nation.
MoDOT gets most of its funding from fuel taxes - 17 cents for each gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel sold in the state.
"On an inflation-adjusted basis, since the last time the fuel tax was raised (in 1996)," McKenna said, "we have a purchasing power back to when it was raised the last time, of 8 cents."
The department's been saying for several years it needs more money.
In his end-of-the-year 2015 column, Commission Chairman Stephen R. Miller noted Missouri leaders in the 1920s "had the foresight to recognize the dramatic impact and potential the emerging automobile would have to live in the state. Those leaders established a highway department to professionally manage the construction and maintenance of a system of state roads (and amended) the Missouri Constitution (to) create an independent citizen commission that would govern the department, thereby removing transportation policy from the political process."
Also, Miller wrote: "Those same leaders also determined that those who used the roads should pay for them and implemented a tax on fuel - almost ten years before the federal government - to fund the road system, (with the) tax revenues ... deemed appropriated for the roads at the time of collection."
Still, Miller wrote, with the current funding crisis, "Unless our current leaders act to provide a dependable, recurring and long-term funding source, we are in danger of squandering our inheritance."
In 2014, lawmakers placed a proposed sales tax increase, effective only for a decade, on the ballot. However, for a number of reasons, voters rejected it.
Gov. Jay Nixon told reporters last week, "One of the reasons why I was against the proposal that came in front of voters to say, "Let's have a sales tax,' was we base what we should do on roads on user fees, and that is a much better model to do it, so that truckers and others have to pay."
Nixon said he supports a proposal by state Sen. Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, to increase the gasoline tax by 1.5 cents per gallon, and the diesel tax by 3.5 cents, calling it "a small, incremental step."
A similar bill didn't make it out of the Senate in the 2015 legislative session.
McKenna told the News Tribune last week, "The view that I have is that moving toward a sustainable solution - even if that means taking steps to get there - we should be supportive of those.
"It's really important to take the first step."
He said he and other transportation leaders can make a case for a number of different packages that would involve $10 million to "$1 billion of additional revenue and be making all the progress that we need. There are very substantial needs when you have 34,000 miles of roads to take care of and 10,400 (state-owned) bridges ..."
McKenna also noted several states in the region have recently raised their fuel taxes, including Iowa's 10-cent increase last year.
"I think what we're seeing is our neighbors are understanding that what they are doing (is) investing that money in their economic future," he said, "and in the safety and well-being of their citizens.
"So, we really need to ask that question of ourselves - "Should we be leading the nation or lagging the region?'"
State Senate Minority Leader, Joe Keaveny, D-St. Louis, told reporters last week, "If we're going to fix the roads, let's dedicate money to fix the roads, or float bonds, or go back and raise the taxes."
House Minority Leader Jake Hummel, D-St. Louis, said, "We're talking about some substantial costs to rebuild our roadways and our transportation network in general."
Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said at a separate news conference, "The funding, we're just not sure where that's going to head, but we do need to talk about it."
Also, House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, added, "I think what's critical in transportation funding is that we have to make the funding a priority. And I think there's some things we can do within existing revenue streams to make that possible.
"And that's where the House is going to start."
However, Nixon said, lawmakers should focus on the user-fee concept and avoid using general revenues, which historically have been for "mental health ... education (and) colleges."
McKenna told the News Tribune that transportation leaders must look at different funding methods to sustain the state's system.
"We're trying to focus on taking care of the system, and to the extent that we have an (increase) there, I think what we can do - instead of just treading water - is actually making progress on some of the critical and weight-restricted bridges in the state," he explained. "Do we have some options that are available, that would require legislative action?
"We do, and one of those is tolling."
He noted Congress' newest road-funding law gives the state just one year - from last month - to exercise its option on converting I-70 to a toll road.
However, McKenna acknowledged Missouri's trucking industry has pledged to use other highways - like U.S. 50 in Mid-Missouri and U.S. 36 from Hannibal to St. Joseph - to avoid toll roads in the state as much as it can.
"Jointly, we have to come to some conclusion as to whether there could be a business proposition that could work in a sense that economically benefited the (trucking) industry," he said.
He also noted increased costs for truckers - whether tolls on some highways or higher fuel costs - will be passed on to consumers in higher prices.