A coalition of business leaders called Fix Colorado Roads is advancing a proposal to ask Colorado voters to approve a bond issue to raise money to rebuild, repair and improve the state’s highway infrastructure. It is a well-intentioned plan to address a widely recognized need. What it lacks, however, is precisely what is needed to accomplish its goal – money.
The group wants the Legislature to refer a measure to the voters next fall. If approved, it would allow the state to sell bonds totaling $3.5 billion to be paid back over 20 years.
The problem lies not in the spending proposed, but in the part about paying off those bonds. The thinking there appears to be that we should pass the bond issue, fix the roads and worry about the rest later.
As anyone who travels Colorado can attest, the state’s roads and highways are sorely in need of the kind of attention Fix Colorado Roads envisions. While a complete list of what the bonds would fund is still being put together, some of the projects likely to be on it are clear.
A great deal of attention would of course be paid to I-70 and I-25 along the Front Range. That is where Colorado has the most people and the greatest amount of traffic.
At the same time, though, the wish list includes a number of projects in Southwest Colorado. Among them are repairs or improvements to U.S. highways 160, 550 and 491 as well as Colorado highways 172 and 151. Who knows, we may even see the Bridges to Nowhere connect to something.
That all sounds good. There is no doubt those highways need work. As David May, head of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce and a backer of the proposal told the Herald, “Our population is growing, our economy is expanding and everyone agrees that quality roads and bridges are the key to prosperity and our world-class quality of life.”
Maybe not “the key” but certainly a key component. Issuing bonds, though, is akin to taking out a loan and loans must be repaid. Fix Colorado Roads has not said exactly how it sees that working, but it would have to involve a mix of existing Colorado Department of Transportation dollars and money from the General Fund.
Except, of course, there is no extra money in the General Fund and CDOT funding is spoken for. Not to belabor the obvious, but if CDOT had money to spend, we would not be trying to figure out how to fix the roads. And if there was money lying around in the General Fund, Colorado lawmakers would not be trying to pull a rabbit out of their collective hat to close a $373 million budgetary shortfall.
Fix Colorado Roads has correctly identified a legitimate need. Its funding mechanism, however, is no more than kicking yet another can down the road. And unless its members imagine Colorado voters approving a future tax increase, what that means is further cuts to essential programs already strapped for cash.
Prisons, health and human services, K-12 schools and higher education accounted for 88.5 percent of 2014-2015 General Fund spending. Fix Colorado Roads should own the arithmetic and either include some sort of tax in its proposal or identify where it would cut.
