Ga. road budget looks bleak

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has asked the governor and the state legislature to cancel plans to borrow $300 million for highway projects, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. GDOT thinks the state will have insufficient funds to pay back the debt.

GDOT also notified the legislature that it may have to forgo millions of dollars in federal road funds, because it may not be able to scrape together the required 20% matching funds.

The state’s debt payments for the road program have already reached hundreds of millions of dollars, the Journal-Constitution said, due on borrowing over the past decade. The further $300 million was to be part of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s proposed transportation program for the fiscal year starting this July. With declining gas-tax revenue, GDOT projects the state might not be able to make federal matching payments as early as the fiscal year beginning in July 2011.

Gov. Perdue has not yet responded to GDOT’s request, except to say that he still wants to jump-start road construction.