MDOT: Pending 9-cent pump increase would create recurring transportation funding, agency says

The Mississippi Department of Transportation could receive a new, recurring revenue stream if a bill sent to the governor becomes law, Central District Transportation Commissioner and Transportation Commission Chair Willie Simmons said on the Extra Mile podcast.

Simmons said the proposal would raise the motor fuel tax by a total of nine cents over three years (about three cents per year) and include an indexing mechanism. "We could see as much as $200,000,000 or pretty close to it coming to us annually," Simmons said, describing the funding as a major expansion of the department's capacity.

Why it matters: MDOT officials and lawmakers told the podcast the recurring funds are intended to make long-term maintenance and capacity planning more predictable. Simmons said the funding would provide money for state aid, multimodal programs and maintenance work the department currently cannot fully fund with lottery proceeds and other existing sources.

Simmons said MDOT has a published three-year plan that lays out how the new dollars would be staged. "When they send us these resources, we're going to manage and administrate them. We're going to be transparent. We're going to be accountable," Simmons said. He cautioned that a three-year plan does not mean every project will be built within three years; rather, MDOT will use that window to make projects shovel-ready and start preliminary work.

Simmons described the department's maintenance shortfall in concrete terms. He said MDOT needs "somewhere around $40,000,000 annually" just to bring maintenance of highways and bridges to the level the agency considers adequate.

The bill had been voted on by both chambers and was awaiting the governor's signature at the time of the podcast. Simmons thanked the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the house and supportive legislators for backing the proposal and said MDOT will report how it spends the funds.

The podcast did not include the bill number or statutory citations, and Simmons did not say whether the governor had signed the measure.

Provenance: The podcast discussion about the pending legislation, the three-year plan and expected revenues appears in the program's later segment, where Simmons thanks legislators and describes the 9-cent proposal and its anticipated impact. The first relevant on-record discussion begins during the segment starting at 1294.51 seconds; the discussion continues through the segment ending at 1461.51 seconds.