Maryland budgeters consider diverting highway funds

Budget analysts in Maryland are urging the state General Assembly to divert funds from transportation to the general fund, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The budget officials said their recommendation would “relieve funding pressure on the general fund,” at a recent budget briefing before the state Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. The recommendation was to extend a 2008 decision to reduce transportation’s share of the state sales tax from 6.5% to 5.3%. The reduction, which was originally made to close a temporary budget gap, is scheduled to expire on July 1, 2013.

Letting the temporary reduction expire would restore $57 million to the transportation fund in fiscal year 2013 and $59 million in 2014.

There is no provision in the Maryland constitution to protect transportation funding from being diverted, and attempts to install such a provision have been defeated.

The state’s secretary of transportation, Beverley K. Swaim-Staley, told the budget committee that the sales tax revenue was already figured into the department’s budget for paying back state bonds and that her department opposed the idea of diverting the funds for general use, but she would work with the governor’s office and the assembly to find a solution.