Letter to the Editor

County roads need help

 

Letter to the Editor:

 

     Gov. Branstad and Iowa legislators are discussing the issue of increasing funding for Iowa roads. Iowa is ranked the third-worst state in the nation for road quality.

     Franklin County has its own road issues. The county’s secondary roads are in rough condition. The county has been getting by using one-time TIF money to fix bridges with money generated from the wind turbines.

     Two years ago, Franklin County proposed closing lots of gravel roads throughout the county. Residents in the county gathered at a public hearing to express their concern with the gravel road closings. The Franklin County Board of Supervisors were left with a small budget and tough decisions to make on what to do about the county roads.

     Franklin County started bonding to make up for the lack of funds to fix county roads. Iowa has at least 30 counties that have also started to bond. Bonding is borrowing money to pay for their expenses. The county cannot continue to borrow money with no long-term way to pay off its debts.

     One common misunderstanding is the idea of raising the off-road fuel tax to help pay for Iowa roads. Iowa farmers use off-road fuel in their tractors to farm the land and use less than 3 percent of that fuel on the road. Raising the fuel tax on off-road fuel would only pay for $20 million annually, which is not going to fix the $218 million annual shortfall that Iowa needs to fix its roads

     Iowa farmers are already paying road tax in semi-truck registrations and road-taxed fuel that the semis use. Taxing off-road fuel is not going to fix the road funding problem.

     Nobody wants to raise taxes, but the gas tax has not been raised since 1989. The fairest way to fix the $218 million annual shortfall to fix Iowa roads is to increase the tax on the people who are using Iowa roads. Out-of-state drivers will also pay to use Iowa roads. Supporting a gas tax increase would make our state and county transportation infrastructure better.

 

Brian Borcherding

Vice President

Franklin County Farm Bureau

Hampton Chronicle

9 Second Street NW
Hampton, IA 50441
Phone: 641-456-2585
Fax: 1-800-340-0805
Email: news@midamericapub.com

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