Gov. Rick Perry’s addition of transportation to the special session yesterday may mean more funding for Texas highways.
But Travis County Commissioners sent a letter today to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House arguing the Texas Department of Transportation relies too heavily on Central Texas counties to fund improvements to the state highway system.
Commissioners endorsed the transportation overhaul SJR 2,which would divert half of all oil and gas taxes away from the Rainy Day fund and into a state highway fund. Commissioners say that a lack of upkeep forces counties to choose between congested roadways and leveraging local debt to improve state highways.
But newly-appointed Precinct Two Commissioner Bruce Todd said that the extra TXDoT funding in SJR 2 would alleviate some of the countywide burden.
“What this will do is put more money in TXDoT’s coffers that it can use on these kinds of things,” Todd said “And hopefully reduce some of the pressure on counties to actually partner with the state in fixing state roads, freeing up some money for us to do some improvements to our county road system.”
Precinct One Commissioner Ron Davis says that even if SJR 2 passes and the Texas Department of Transportation is better funded to maintain roads, counties still have to compete for the money.
“What I’m trying to avoid in the future [is] that the competition would get to the point to where we’d get left out,” Davis said. “Because we have gotten left out in the past … and we’ll have to compete just like anybody else.”
The Texas Conference of Urban Counties also petitioned the governor to place infrastructure on the call this special session. If SJR 2 passes, the final decision on whether to proceed with the transportation fund would be put to voters this fall.
