Road-repair bonds vote set for Nov. 8

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas voters will decide Nov. 8 whether to authorize $575 million in highway repair bonds.

Flanked by leaders of Arkansas’ main political parties, Gov. Mike Beebe on Monday set the date of the election in which legislators and road construction interests want voters to renew a bond program for repairs to about half of Arkansas’ interstate miles.

The projects would employ about 28,500 people, according to the chairman of the Move Arkansas Forward Committee, a group pushing for the measure.

Beebe has had the authority to call for the election since 2007.

He was prompted to do so after the Arkansas Trucking Association withdrew support for a separate 5-cents per gallon increase in the diesel fuel tax that legislators had referred to voters.

Beebe was flanked by state Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb to his left and state Democratic Party Chairman Will Bond to his right.

The three said finding money to fix Arkansas roads shouldn’t be partisan. An advocacy group made up of county, city and state associations, a trucking group and contractors is also pushing the measure.

If voters allow it, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department would be authorized to issue bonds for about $1 billion in interstate repairs, continuing a program approved by 79.4 percent of voters in 1999.

According to a news release from the group, repairs would begin in late 2012 and would take place on nearly 300 miles of highway, including Interstate 530 between Little Rock and Pine Bluff, Interstate 40 between Brinkley and West Memphis and between Fort Smith and Conway. Several sections of interstate around Little Rock would also be repaired, along with a stretch of Interstate 540 from Alma to Rogers and sections of Interstate 30 between Little Rock and Texarkana.

Proponents of the plan all stressed that renewing the bond is not a tax increase.

“The operative word here is renew,” Beebe said. “This is not a new tax. The passage or the failure of this program doesn’t increase or decrease anybody’s taxes.”

The bonds are financed by future federal funds and a 4-cent-per-gallon diesel fuel tax increase that became law when Mike Huckabee was governor.

The repair program approved by voters in 1999 resulted in a five-year, $1 billion effort to overhaul Arkansas’ interstate system. That program — which overhauled more than 350 miles of interstate spread among 54 projects — also was financed by the $575 million bond issue, the 4-cents-per-gallon increase in the tax on diesel fuel and federal money set aside for interstate maintenance.

The Arkansas State Highway Commission met for about an hour Monday afternoon to review the 1999 bond program and look at the impact of a new bond program on the Arkansas interstate system.

After the 1999 bond program’s construction work was completed in 2006, about 72 percent of the interstate system was in good condition, according to a department analysis. By 2014, when the bonds from the 1999 program are scheduled to be paid off, the department projects about 67 percent would still be in good condition.

If voters approve the renewal of the bond program, 71 percent of the interstate would be in good condition in 2028 when the bonds from the renewal are retired. Without the renewal, 62 percent would be in good condition, according to the analysis.

The interstate system in Arkansas totals about 650 miles. The 1999 program repaired about 355 miles. The latest bond program, if voters approve it, would repair about 300 miles, including repairs to some of the first sections repaired in the 1999 program. Those sections will be about 20 years old by the time they are fixed again, acting department Director Scott Bennett said.

The commission also discussed starting the process to hire a financial adviser as soon as its Sept. 7 meeting.

Beebe said he is calling a special election for November instead of having voters consider the issue during a normally scheduled election because he wants to focus attention on the bonds, instead of having to compete with other elections like the presidential race.

“It’s such a united, nondivisive issue from the political spectrum, at least from the political spectrum that’s represented here, that it’s nice to have this ... apart from the things that normally divide people,” Beebe said.

Bond and Webb echoed the governor.

“We have to continue to invest in the infrastructure of our state ... both parties ought to be on the same page in supporting the program,” Bond said. “It’s a no-brainer.”

Webb said it is important that Arkansans know the two parties are most interested in doing what’s best for the state.

“We believe it’s good for Arkansas and it’s Arkansas first,” Webb said. “It’s important for the state.”

Act 153 of 2009 gave the state Highway Commission until Dec. 31, 2015, to issue new bonds. The original bonds will be paid off in August 2014.

Move Arkansas Forward Committee Chairman R. Madison Murphy of El Dorado said that would take as long as a year after the election, late 2012, before the department could begin issuing bonds. “That is one of the drivers [for the special election] as well,” he said.

Murphy is also the chairman of the Highway Commission.

The two men heading the Move Arkansas Forward Committee were a part of the Arkansas Blue Ribbon Committee on Highway Finance, which recommended renewing the bonds. The co-chairman is contractor Mark Lamberth of Batesville.

The Move Arkansas Forward Committee includes the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, the Arkansas Municipal League, the Association of Arkansas Counties, the Arkansas chapter of the Association of General Contractors, the Arkansas Good Roads/Transportation Council and the Arkansas Trucking Association.

After advocating the fivecents-per-gallon diesel-fuel tax increase proposal during this year’s legislative session, the Arkansas Trucking Association board changed course, saying it didn’t think there would be enough public support for the tax increase.

The current state and federal tax on diesel is 47.2 cents per gallon. The current state and federal tax on gasoline is 40.2 cents per gallon, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

The governor said at the time that he plans an effort to repeal a new law exempting commercial trucks and trailers from the state sales tax, which was adopted earlier this year in exchange for the trucking industry’s support of the separate five-cent diesel tax increase proposal.

The trucking association eventually supported that repeal effort.

House Speaker Robert S. Moore, Jr. said the diesel tax wouldn’t have been approved without the association’s financial help for a public relations campaign.

Moore, D-Arkansas City, was the force behind two highway funding bills during the legislative session, including the now-dormant proposal to raise the diesel tax 5 cents per gallon.

“Without that financial commitment we felt like this was the best thing to do, to go forward with something. Half a loaf it better than no loaf at all, that’s kind of where we are. We’ve successfully done this before so it’s kind of a reminder, it’s not like we have to totally educate the voting population again about what the program is and how successful it can be because we’ve seen it one time,” Moore said with the election only about 70 days off.