LITTLE ROCK — Renewal of a $575 million highway bond program, which voters will decide in a Nov. 8 special election, will pay for work on parts of the Arkansas interstate system the original bond program repaired a dozen years ago.
Early voting on the renewal begins Tuesday around the state.
The state Highway and Transportation Department had no breakdown of the potential projects in the new bond program available last week, but a map the department has drawn shows the proposed projects overlap some parts of the interstate system that were repaired in the 1999 program.
That is especially true, for example, on Interstate 40 — a 70-mile section between Conway and Clarksville and north from the White River to West Memphis, a distance of more than 65 miles. Both segments are shown to be part of the 1999 program and part of the proposed work if the bond program is renewed.
The implication of the campaign formed to back the program, Move Arkansas Forward, suggests that the program before voters will finish the job the 1999 program began. The first program overhauled 350 miles of interstates, while the new program will repair 300 miles, or the balance of the 650-mile system.
Gov. Mike Beebe implied much the same thing in his Saturday radio address and weekly column, which urged voters to support renewing the bonds.
“The upkeep of our interstate system is an ongoing expense, and bond proposals like this one have proven to be an effective and cost-efficient solution,” the governor said. “In 1999, Arkansas voters overwhelmingly approved a virtually identical measure that led to the reconstruction of 356 miles of interstate highways. However, there are still more than 300 miles of interstate in Arkansas that need immediate improvement.”
Some work on the interstate system already is in progress or is scheduled as part of the Highway Department’s regular statewide transportation improvement program and won’t be eligible for the bond work. Those projects, which total about 45 miles, are spaced over about four years, which is a typical time frame for pay-as-you-go projects, said Randy Ort, a department spokesman. One of the projects — rebuilding a 7.3-mile section of Interstate 530 from south of the Pulaski County line to the Jefferson exit in Jefferson County — was awarded an almost $26 million contract earlier this month.
Taking those projects out of the equation presumably would leave a little more than 250 miles left to repair. But, Ort said, the department never meant to suggest that the projects that would be done under the bond-renewal program wouldn’t include some of the same mileage repaired under the 1999 program.
“We’ve got needs and some of it may be [on interstate] we’ve already done,” he said. “Our job is never finished.”
The agency plans to release today more-detailed maps of the projects, which Ort said will exceed the 300 miles touted in the campaign, presumably reducing the percentage of overlapping work as part of the overall project.
The extra detail isn’t be- ing provided in response to criticism from some quarters that the program has been too vague in its promises, Ort said. Rather, the department staff has needed the nearly two months since Beebe called the election to refine the projects. “We’re getting it out as fast as we can,” he said.
Beebe, using authority the governor has had since 2007, called the election in August after the Arkansas Motor Carriers Association withdrew support for a separate 5-cents per gallon increase in the diesel fuel tax that legislators had referred to voters.
Under the proposal voters will consider, the Highway Department would be authorized to issue bonds for about $1 billion in interstate repairs, continuing the program approved by nearly 80 percent of voters in 1999. The bonds will be financed by future federal funds and a 4-cent-per-gallon dieselfuel tax increase that became law when Mike Huckabee was governor.
“The money will fund maintenance projects statewide, so everyone will benefit,” Beebe said in the weekly address. “And there’s nothing to be gained by voting this measure down. While taxes will not go up if the bond is approved, they also won’t go down if voters reject the proposal.”
The state tax now on a gallon of diesel fuel is 22.5 cents.
The repair program voters approved 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 bonds are scheduled to be retired in the next couple of years.
Representatives of some Tea Party and other conservative groups in Arkansas have criticized the proposal, saying now isn’t the best time for the state to take on more debt, given the economic turmoil revolving over government debt in the United States and Europe. Standard & Poor’s credit-rating agency downgraded U.S. debt for the first time in August. The European Union has worked for several months to contain its debt crisis.
Economic conditions are “much more difficult” now than they were in 1999, said Jeff Oland, who is chairman of the Washington County Tea Party and has urged others to vote against the proposal. “I’m not opposed to highway improvements. It’s just how we are going about doing it. The people need to take control of the purse.”
Secure Arkansas, which opposes taking on debt for routine maintenance, has been running a radio advertising campaign against the proposal.
But the governor and his allies say renewing the bond program is an effective use of resources.
“Continuing the bond program will save the state money in two primary ways,” Beebe said. “First, the cost of road construction continues to rise, so the sooner we get to work modernizing these roads, the more we can avoid inflation. Second, the longer we wait, the further our roads will deteriorate. Roads that become increasingly worse become increasingly expensive to repair.”
State highway officials say that is why the second bond program will be repairing some of the roads targeted in the first. By the time repairs are ready to be made on them, they will be more than 15 years old, Ort said. The 1999 program did major reconstruction work on those roads, requiring less expensive repair work this time to lengthen their life, he said.
And while some of the new work will cover old ground, state highway officials project by 2020, the interstate system will have no segments in poor condition if the bond program is renewed. And 76 percent will be in good condition. Conversely, without the bond program, 56 percent will be in good condition and 10 percent will be in poor condition. Before the 1999 program began, 63 percent of the interstate system was in poor condition and just 21 percent was in good repair.
Move Arkansas Forward, meanwhile, has launched a television advertising campaign in markets around the state, said Craig Douglass, who is coordinating the group’s activities. The group has raised $260,000, much of it from the construction and finance industry, according to its latest financial report, filed Oct. 14. Douglass and the group’s two co-chairman — R. Madison Murphy of El Dorado, the Arkansas Highway Commission chairman, and Mark Lamberth, a Batesville contractor — have been speaking to civic groups and city councils in different parts of the state.
Some conservatives now are backing the proposal. State Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, among the wave of freshman GOP House members swept into the state Capitol last fall, said after studying the issue that the “popular position among conservatives is incorrect.”
He concluded that by speeding construction, avoiding higher construction costs, the 1999 program saved more than $500 million versus paying for the work as the money was available, which Bell estimated would have taken 20 years to do the same work as the 1999 program did.
Under pay as you go, “the construction costs and deterioration makes it impossible to ever catch up with the need with the same amount of revenue” that will be used in the bond program, Bell said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/31/2011