10/21/04-Louisiana’s transportation head said this week that despite a $10 billion backlog in state highway projects, it will be at least two years before any tax or fee hike is sought to pay for improvements.
Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Johnny Bradberry said the highway agency suffers from public image problems, and he must address that issue before requesting new tax dollars.
“We are not in a position … to ask the public for more money,” he told a gathering Oct. 18 in Baton Rouge, LA.
Bradberry took over the transportation post from Kam Movassaghi in March.
Before asking for money, Bradberry said the department first needs time to make its operations more efficient, which he said would take up most of next year.
“We have a negative image with the public,” he said. “We are always on the defensive.”
In 2006, a tax hike for roads could only be considered in a special state legislative session. And with Gov. Kathleen Blanco facing re-election in 2007, any push for higher taxes decreases in likelihood.
“I think there will come a time in (Blanco’s) first term when it is likely we will be discussing more (road) money, whether it comes from tolls, whether it comes from an increased tax, whatever,” Bradberry told local media.
But the first step, he said, is a detailed plan to study department operations and decide what changes are needed to boost public trust. Bradberry said he hopes to have study recommendations to Blanco and lawmakers “in the first quarter of 2005.”

2/26/04-Louisiana’s top highway official is repeating his call for more funds for state roads, saying that higher fuel taxes are not the only way to bring in money, and suggesting ways to boost the amount of money applied to roads.
“There are many ways we can do this. We don’t have to go ‘Zap!’ to the [fuel] taxes,” Kam Movassaghi, secretary of the state Department of Transportation and Development told The Advocate.
Movassaghi said lawmakers have rerouted $120 million a year of DOTD’s money from the 20-cent-per-gallon state fuel tax to nonhighway programs, such as funding State Police and local transportation funds.
“If I get that $120 million, I’ll be great,” he said.
Movassaghi said he would like to see state truck-licensing fees, which generate about $40 million a year, go to DOTD and possibly even an increase in license-plate fees for all vehicles, to generate money for roads.
He said Louisiana is unique in that the sole source of state funding of highways is the fuel tax.
“This is the only state in the nation where we put all our eggs in one basket,” Movassaghi said.
Movassaghi has often said DOTD needs more money to address maintenance problems, and he has previously suggested raising fuel taxes, the newspaper reported.
Andy Kopplin, the governor’s chief of staff, said Gov. Kathleen Blanco has no plans to increase fuel taxes, shift where the fuel tax money goes or take any other action to change DOTD’s funding sources or levels.
He said Blanco wants the agency to first focus on making itself as efficient as it can be.
Instead, Kopplin told The Times-Picayune, the administration will use “innovative financing” to pay for road construction, such as borrowing against anticipated federal highway construction dollars, selling more bonds and possibly building some toll roads.