Fund For Roads And Bridges Raided: Report
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- October
- 29
The state continues to raid a fund dedicated for repair of roads and bridges to pay for operating expenses, leading to a deterioration of the state’s infrastructure, according to a report today from the state’s Comptroller’s Office.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that since 1991, only 35 percent, or $11.6 billion, of the money in the state’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund went to repair the state’s roads and bridges.
The rest covered state debt payments as well as operating expenses at the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation, DiNapoli said.
The trust fund was created in 1991 to fund the construction and development of state roads and bridges and was to be self-sustaining through taxes and fees. But starting in the 1994-95 fiscal year, the fund began paying debt for bonds from the state Thruway Authority, and later operating expenses for state agencies, DiNapoli said.
The report comes as Gov. David Paterson recently said the state doesn’t have the money to fund a $25.8 billion five-year capital plan for roads and bridges.
“This money should be going toward keeping our roads and bridges safe, not to fund state agency operations,” DiNapoli said in a statement.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 10:21 am by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
