Highway Building & Maintenance Funding

Section 9 of the bill requires the transportation commission (commission) to submit a ballot question to the voters of the state at the November 2018 statewide election which, if approved:

• Will require the executive director of the department of transportation (CDOT) to issue transportation revenue anticipation notes (TRANs) in a maximum principal amount of $3.5 billion and with a maximum repayment cost of $5 billion; and
• Will, in conjunction with sections 3, 4, and 7, repeal current law, enacted by Senate Bill 17-267, that requires the state treasurer to execute lease-purchase agreements of up to $1.88 billion for the purpose of funding high-priority qualified federal aid transportation projects.

The executive director must issue at least one-third of the TRANs within one year of the date of the official declaration of the vote on the ballot issue by the governor, issue at least two-thirds of the TRANs within 2 years of that date, and issue all of the TRANs within 3 years of that date. The additional TRANs must have a maximum repayment term of 20 years, and the certificate, trust indenture, or other instrument authorizing their issuance must provide that the state may pay them in full before the end of the specified payment term without penalty. TRANs must otherwise generally be issued subject to the same requirements as the TRANs issued in 1999; except that the commission must pledge to annually allocate from legally available money under its control any money needed for payment of TRANs until the TRANs are fully repaid.

Section 10 requires TRANs net proceeds not otherwise pledged for TRANs payments to be credited to the state highway fund and expended by CDOT only for qualified federal aid highway projects as described in section 6. CDOT may expend no more than 10% of the net proceeds for the administration and engineering of the projects being funded with the net proceeds.

On and after July 1, 2018, section 5 requires 7.5% of state sales and use tax net revenue to be credited to the state highway fund and used first to make TRANs payments. Section 6 requires state sales and use tax net revenue credited to the state highway fund that is not expended to make TRANs payments to be expended only for maintenance of qualified federal aid highways and requires TRANs net proceeds credited to the state highway fund to be expended only for qualified federal aid highway projects included in the strategic transportation project investment program of CDOT and designated for tier 1 funding as 10-year development program projects on CDOT's development program project list.

If the voters of the state approve the issuance of TRANs, CDOT is required to ensure that construction of one-third of the projects commences within one year of the date of the official declaration of the vote on the ballot issue by the governor, to ensure that construction of two-thirds of the projects commences within 2 years of that date, and ensure that construction of all of the projects commences within 3 years of that date. Section 7 requires CDOT to include specified information about the state sales and use tax net revenue and TRANs net proceeds in its annual report to the senate transportation committee and the house transportation and energy committee.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)