COLUMBUS – Each Ohio of Ohio’s 88 counties stands to receive at least $4 million a year from the state’s tax on gasoline if lawmakers approve an 18-cents-a-gallon increase included in the Ohio Department of Transportation submitted at the Statehouse Thursday morning.
UPDATE: 2/21/19 – This story has been updated from an earlier version to include the presentation of the budget recommendation and ODOT director Jack Marchbanks’s testimony
The $7.43 billion transportation budget ODOT director Jack Marchbanks took before the Ohio House Finance Committee today, which included the proposed tax increase, would fund operations at ODOT for the next two years.
The tax increase, intended to fund road and bridge maintenance, would also be adjusted according to inflation each year.
In prepared testimony, Marchbanks warned the committee that the supply of money for fixing Ohio’s highways and bridges was about to dry up.
“The credit cards are maxed out and the long-term health of Ohio’s transportation system is now at stake,” he said. “Without a change in our available revenue, there will not be enough money for ODOT and our local partners to keep the roadways in their current condition, and roads will deteriorate.”
Marchbanks said previously that Ohio’s road maintenance and infrastructure are facing an “impending crisis” unless more funding is provided for those types of projects.
If enacted by the General Assembly, the increase would raise the state gas tax to 46 cents a gallon and take effect in July.
If enacted today, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the state would increase to $2.50, according to the auto club AAA’s daily survey of gas stations.
The revenue raised in the first year equates to roughly $1.2 billion and will be split between ODOT and local governments with ODOT receiving roughly 60 percent with 40 percent going to local governments. In the first year, each county would receive $4.2 million with the amount increasing to $4.5 million in 2024, according to data released by the department Thursday morning..
Marchbanks told lawmakers the increased fuel tax would allow ODOT to funnel an additional $1.6 million to counties and municipalities. The increase will also allow ODOT to maintain a program of splitting $350 million among the state’s counties in addition to each county’s share of the tax revenue.
He projected the tax hike would allow the department to fund approximately $250 million in new improvement projects each year, pointing to the I-70/I-71 split in downtown Columbus and the State Route 37/U.S. Route 62 interchange in Licking County as two of the state’s top priorities.
A constitutional restriction prohibits the money from being used for anything other than construction, reconstruction, maintenance, and repair of public highways and bridges, ODOT spokesman Matt Bruning said.