COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina House members said Thursday that an audit of the Department of Transportation verifies that fixing the state’s crumbling roads requires additional money - and a lot of it - from a reliable, dedicated source of money like the gas tax.
South Carolina ranks at the bottom nationally in investing in its roads. The state’s spending per lane mile is 66 percent lower than the regional average, Brad Hanley with the Legislative Audit Council told a House panel.
Since 2008, the percentage of the state’s roads falling into poor condition has increased significantly, causing repair costs to skyrocket. Although a mile of pavement in good condition costs $21,900 to preserve, poor-condition pavement must be reconstructed at $188,000 per mile per lane, Hanley said in presenting the council’s 335-page report released earlier this week.
Restoring pavement just on the 54 percent of major, noninterstate roads currently in poor condition would cost $2.5 billion.
“We’re at the bottom of the barrel,” said Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston. “And we’re costing ourselves daily. This is a staggering number.”
Although the audit found process and governance issues, it found no mismanagement or fraud, Hanley said.
Hanley agreed that the DOT needs a “steady stream” of revenue and recommended diversifying the sources. DOT’s reliance on a per-gallon gas tax, unchanged since 1987, is a problem as inflation increases construction costs and more fuel-efficient vehicles mean people buy less gas, auditors wrote.
Hanley suggested indexing the gas tax to fuel prices or inflation. And the report gave possible other sources for money, such as insurance surcharges, rental car fees, tolls and driver’s license fees. But Hanley declined to give specific recommendations.
The council’s long-awaited audit comes amid the Legislature’s debate about how to fix the roads.
Rep. Weston Newton, R-Bluffton, said the audit disproves the argument made by opponents of increasing the gas tax that roads could be fixed if only the DOT spent its money better.
The DOT could spend all of its current funding on roads now poorly rated and still not address them all in a decade, while the rest of the system crumbled, he said.
“Yes, sir, it’s a time bomb,” Hanley said.
Next week, the House will debate the Senate’s plan that pledges to designate $400 million yearly from the general fund to roadwork. The budget proposal passed by the House last month dedicates roughly that amount next year.
But House members of both parties insist that’s a one-year solution, as the Legislature can’t keep a promise to set aside that amount indefinitely. The road-funding plan the House passed last year effectively would have raised the gas tax by 10 cents per gallon, to 26 cents, raising roughly $400 million additional yearly.
House members said Thursday that amount is clearly not enough.
“I don’t know where we’re going to get the money,” said Rep. Joe Neal, D-Hopkins. South Carolina has the nation’s fourth-largest highway system “and nowhere near the money to maintain it.”
DOT Secretary Christy Hall told the panel that $400 million yearly over the next decade would bring 35 percent of primary roads to good condition, prevent further decay of secondary roads eligible for federal funding, reduce the number of deficient bridges and address some congestion “pinch-points.” It would take an $800 million investment annually before any scenario that widens interstate miles.
Gov. Nikki Haley continued Thursday to call on House leaders to just agree to the Senate version and send the bill to her desk. She insists the bill would die otherwise, and the House shouldn’t set aside a good bill trying to craft one that’s perfect.
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