road funding

Indiana closed its fiscal year – which ended on June 30th – with a budget surplus of $42 million.

The state also closed with a reserve of $1.77 billion. That’s about $400 million less than the year before.

Office of Management and Budget Director Micah Vincent says the decline was caused by the state’s new long-term road funding plan.

Gov. Eric Holcomb announces the priorities for the next five years of road and bridge repairs. (Photo by Drew Daudelin)

Gov. Eric Holcomb talked Thursday about the first five years of a 20-year initiative to improve the state’s roads and bridges.

The plan would result in 10,000 miles of existing highways being resurfaced and about 1,300 bridges being repaired or replaced.

Holcomb says the initiative, called Next Level Roads, outlines about $4.7 billion in investments over the next five years.

About 45 tax and fee increases take effect in Indiana July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Most of the tax and fee hikes the legislature passed this year are pretty routine, says John Ketzenberger, president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute. The exceptions are tied to road funding – chiefly, a 10 cent-per-gallon gas tax hike.

“Gosh,” says Ketzenberger, “It’d been almost 20 years since we raised the fuel taxes, so it is unusual, and we talked about it for a couple of years before we did it.”

UPS announced plans this week to open a $260 million shipping hub in Plainfield by 2019 – one of the first big logistics investments to come after the state passed its road funding plan.

The repairs and upgrades that $1 billion-a-year funding package will fund with tax and fee increases are a big deal for companies that rely on roads.

A who’s-who of Midwest business leaders met in Indianapolis Thursday to talk about their stake in fixing updating the nation’s aging transportation system.

Many say Indiana’s plans for road repairs should stand as a national, multi-modal example.

Ports of Indiana CEO Rich Cooper, who helped host the roundtable discussion, says the state and national economies rely on more than ships and barges. Changes at one part of the system, he says, have huge ripple effects on the rest.