Keep WV Moving

CHARLESTON — Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox spoke with relish Sunday about a possible bonanza for West Virginia in an economic stimulus package before Congress. If it is approved, he told Select Committee C on Infrastructure, the state could expect about $120 million more in road money in the coming year.

“This is kind of like bonus money,” Maddox told the legislative panel. “There are tremendous problems.” Mattox said the cash, if approved, would be limited to some 12,000 miles of federal highway in the state.

Already, he said the DOT is looking at ways to spend the money on developing paving, replacing bridges, repairing slips and slides, and the like. “We want to put that money to work for West Virginia residents,” the secretary said.

The secretary pointed out that when funds are divvied among the states, West Virginia generally can count on getting about 1 percent of the money.

Mattox reminded the legislators that the Federal Highway Trust Fund got an $8 billion shot in the arm this year when the Senate passed, and President Bush approved, an emergency supplement from the general revenue account.

In figures he unveiled to the panel, Mattox said the motor fuel tax through October was $2.19 million below estimates, but the Department of Revenue shifted some $10,753,000 from the motor fuel excise tax shortfall fund.

Through the month, all year-to-date revenues were $473,000 under the administration’s estimates.

Even with the dip in fuel and sales taxes, Mattox said, registration fee collections managed to offset most of the shortages.

Mattox cautioned the panel that if the special, 5-cent add-on tax approved during the administration of Gov. Gaston Caperton and subsequently renewed under Gov. Joe Manchin isn’t sustained, the state can expect a substantial drop in the excise fuel tax by fiscal 2014.

Those figures assume no change in the variable portion of the tax, based on sales of gas from July through October. This part of the tax was frozen this year.