Brad White (seen at center in above photo), executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, recently spoke about state infrastructure funding challenges and opportunities on his agency’s “Extra Mile” podcast.
[Above photo by the Mississippi DOT]
“So our state revenue is key to being able to access the federal [infrastructure] funds,” he explained on the podcast. “Our state [infrastructure] funds have been somewhat flat for quite some time and so we’ve been working with the legislature in hopes of finding a way to modernize [the state’s infrastructure] funding model to have it come from a more diversified set of streams of revenue so all our eggs aren’t in the one basket of the fuel tax.”
One of the keys to that “new revenue” discussion is demonstrating to the state legislature the ability of the Mississippi DOT to “live within our means,” added White on the podcast.
“It’s about providing them [the legislature] with opportunities that show that we can live within the state’s current budget yet still identify a multitude of sources of revenue that collectively make up the deficit that we’ve faced,” he said.
“We want to keep the capacity program running and we want to continue building big projects that add efficiency to our transportation system,” noted White. “But if our funding stays flat, we’ll maybe have to look at diverting all our funds back to [system] maintenance. So that’s the conversation we’ve been trying to have with our legislature.”
To listen to the full podcast episode, click here.
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