House Dems push to redirect INDOT money

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INDIANAPOLIS – Despite angry opposition from Gov. Mitch Daniels’ office and the Indiana Department of Transportation, House Democrats advanced a bill on Thursday that would drastically alter funding for roads and highways and would slash the state’s transportation department’s budget by a half-billion dollars over the next two years.

 

Democrats on a House transportation panel passed a bill – on a straight 7-5 party line vote – that they said would create jobs immediately.

 

In both 2010 and 2011 the bill would redirect nearly $250 million – nearly half of INDOT’s budget – to counties rather than the state. It would drain $1.5 billion from funds reserved for Daniels’ Major Moves initiative and instead use them to pay for local road projects.

 

It also calls for the Legislature – not the governor – to seize control of all stimulus money the state may receive from the federal government.

 

In an unusual move, House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer testified in front of the Roads and Transportation Committee. Bauer, D-South Bend, said the state is in dire need of job-creation programs and blasted Daniels, saying the governor has failed to act to combat unemployment.

 

By leaving money from Major Moves project and the state’s $1.3 billion reserve account sitting in the bank, the state is passing on opportunities to put Hoosiers to work, Bauer said.

 

“This bill is pro-active. This bill shows respect for the legislative body. This bill puts this money to work now,” he said. “And I think the best part of this bill is, it puts Indiana first.”

 

But the governor’s Republican administration said the bill would cost the state hundreds of millions of transportation dollars.

 

“Look, this is a bill to nowhere. This is not going to create one more new job,” said the governor’s press secretary, Jane Jankowski. “This is a Washington-style pork-and-earmark bill that we just don’t need in Indiana.”

 

INDOT commissioner Karl Browning said the bill would halt all highway construction – including the Interstate 69 extension from Indianapolis to Evansville – and would force the state to lose out on $700 million in matching highway grants.

 

“The way the bill is written, every project after July 1 would be stopped. Period. Every project would be stopped,” he said.

 

Browning called it “a bill that can’t have any possibility of seeing the light of day” and said if it does succeed, “I feel sorry for the people of this state.”

 

Bauer, though, said the Legislature often acts with an “inferiority complex” and “yields to the bully pulpit of the governor.” He said Democrats can’t sit idly by as the federal government crafts an economic stimulus package.

 

“We need our state to act, and just hope that whatever we are able to get from Washington is a bonus,” he said.

 

One of the bill’s three sponsors is Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson. Austin, who chairs the House Transportation committee, criticized Daniels and INDOT officials for leaving money the state gained through Major Moves – the $3.6 billion, 75-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road – in the bank.

 

The bill would shift 25 percent of INDOT’s funding starting this July and 50 percent next July to county governments. It also directs the state to spend money from the Major Moves initiative on 25 specific highway construction projects.

 

Austin said she expects the bill to undergo changes and would perhaps even be amended into another bill, but described it as a starting point.

 

At the bill’s hearing on Thursday, Dennis Faulkenberg, who represented the Build Indiana Council, called the bill a “wreck.” He said it would stop all roadway construction projects except the 25 specifically named in the bill.

 

County transportation officials testified, saying the economic downturn has choked their funding to the extent that they’re sometimes unable to afford salt for the roads. But construction union representatives said the bill simply shifts money around and wouldn’t create more jobs.

 

The bill next moves to the Ways and Means Committee. Two of its sponsors are that committee’s chairman, Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, and his top deputy, Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City.