House and Senate negotiators spar over $300M-plus gap in transportation funding sources

Conference committee members from the House and Senate met to reconcile competing transportation funding proposals, with lawmakers unable to reach agreement on how to fund roughly $300 million to $400 million in program differences and on whether the state can spend the money in the upcoming biennium.

Representative Bosch asked the committee to clarify “what is the actual dollar difference between the house's proposal and the senate's proposal,” after noting he had calculated different totals from the materials in front of him. Chairman Wozik opened the meeting by noting, “We're waiting for 1 member. We're told he's on his way. Hopefully, we can get this done.”

The dispute centers on which revenue sources to use for DOT allocations and for distributions to political subdivisions. Committee discussion repeatedly contrasted the two chambers' mixes: the Senate approach relies more heavily on SIF (referred to in the meeting as “SIF”) and a proposal to use a larger share of motor vehicle excise tax revenues, while the House proposal shifts more dollars to the excise tax, increases legacy earnings allocations to DOT, and moves a larger share…