Illinois Business Journal - Crews stand idle as state diverts 30 percent of user fee dollars

In the wake of an additional $400 million in state road fund diversions and the end of Illinois FIRST dollars, smaller, specialized transportation construction companies have been among the hardest hit.

Monty Docter, executive vice president at Maclair Asphalt Co. Inc. in Collinsville, said Maclair and many other highway contractors in Southwestern Illinois rely on work from the Illinois Department of Transportation for their livelihood.

Maclair Asphalt works primarily in IDOT District 8, which includes the 10 counties of Madison, St. Clair, Monroe, Bond, Clinton, Randolph, Washington, Calhoun, Greene and Jersey.

"We are extremely dependent on the work provided by IDOT," he said. "As such, money that is taken out of the road fund impacts us."

One of the major problems Docter has with road fund diversion, is that when people fill their gas tank or renew license plates, they pay a fee that they are expecting will go toward improving Illinois' road and bridge systems. When that money is used for something else, in his opinion, it breaks the trust between the user paying the fees and the state - an administration that is using the money for something other than for what it was intended.

"We've gone through a couple of pretty lean years," Docter said. "Even with Illinois FIRST money, the state was doing bigger projects, but not many of the maintenance and resurfacing projects. As a result, we haven't seen much of the Illinois FIRST money either. But some of that work may still be coming when the large projects get to a certain point."

Now with Illinois FIRST money gone, Docter said the problem is magnified because the state has to complete the Illinois FIRST projects that were started. With less money available, that's going to reduce money for maintenance work that companies like Maclair perform.

"I see a lot of potholes that indicate stress on our highways and bridges," Docter said. "You have to assume the potholes are the beginning of larger problems that are only going to get bigger."

At its peak, when in full production in 2001, Maclair employed between 100 and 125 people with two asphalt crews and one milling crew. Now its employees total between 50 and 75 on any given week.

"We haven't had two asphalt crews working very often during the past two years," he said.

Now with the heightened cost of doing business in Illinois due to increased trucker fees and new ones such as those imposed on natural gas usage, Docter said it will cost more to do the work. Fewer miles can be completed for the same dollar. On top of that, with fewer dollars available, even less work can be done, he said.

As a member of the transportation committee for the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois and a representative of the Southern Illinois Builders Association on the steering committee for the Transportation for Illinois Coalition, Docter has traveled to Washington D.C. several times in the past 18 months, working on obtaining more money for Illinois' roads through the federal highway reauthorization bill known as TEA-21.

"If we are successful, it means that Illinois is going to have to have some matching funds in order to get those federal dollars," he said. "Potentially, what can happen is that even less money will be available for the state-only projects that are 100 percent funded by IDOT."

Road funds and road construction means jobs, and the fastest way to put people to work is through public works, he said.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation estimates that for every $1 billion spent on highway construction, 46,000 to 47,000 jobs are created. If you take $700 million to $800 million out of the road fund, Docter said, that's a lot of jobs that would have stayed right here in the area and could generate income tax money for the state.

Marvin Traylor, director of engineering with the Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association, said he is well aware that the budget deficit needs to be addressed, but using road fund dollars is not the solution.

"Diversions aren't new, but the construction industry believes user fees are the fairest taxes that consumers pay," Traylor said. "The license plate fees and motor fuel taxes were all passed out of the general assembly with the promise to the public that the money would go to roads and bridges that serve everybody."

Illinoisans who don't own a car and do not buy gasoline do not contribute to funds for road and bridges. The more cars state residents own and the more gas they buy, the more they are financing infrastructure across the state.

But everyone benefits from the road fund, Traylor said, because virtually all goods and services for everything from education, health protection, fire and police protection to food and shelter are delivered at some point across roads and bridges that are essential to the state's well-being.

IDOT is the only agency in the state, to Traylor's knowledge, that specifically announces a five-year plan as to which roads it will work on and build, which bridges, when and where, and then does it.

"The diversions are limiting IDOT's ability to do that," Traylor said. "Road programs are difficult. They involve long-range planning, designing and construction programs. You have to have a predictable revenue stream to deliver them efficiently."

If IDOT is trying to deliver a five-year program and 30 percent of that funding is taken away, 30 percent is not going to come to fruition, he said.

"IDOT and the general assembly will have to determine specific projects that are cut or postponed, but it could affect everybody," he said. "It could be a new corridor in downstate Illinois that doesn't get built; congestion relief in Chicago that is pushed forward; or a safety improvement where accidents have taken place that is put on the back burner."

Even though he realizes there's a fiscal crisis in Illinois, Traylor said it has nothing to do with user fees.

"IDOT always lived within the stream of user fees and did not contribute one penny to the deficit," he said. "Reaching over into the user fees to solve a fiscal problem that is a result of over-spending or under-taxing is not the right answer."