Williams questions transportation road plan

RONNIE ELLIS
CNHI News Service

Frankfort June 23, 2008 08:02 pm

— Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, led a Republican grilling Monday of two Transportation Cabinet officials about a substitute road plan Gov. Steve Beshear wants to implement in place of one passed by the General Assembly.
Williams basically said the cabinet has arbitrarily removed $890 million of projects passed three times by the General Assembly and added $700 million of projects which have never passed the full legislature. Cabinet Chief of Staff Mike Hancock and Highway Engineer Gilbert Newman never effectively refuted Williams’ contention.
The General Assembly passed a separate highway bill on the final day of this year’s session containing the six-year road plan. In the past, the road plan has been in the form of a budget memorandum accompanying the legislatively passed budget. But this year, Beshear vetoed the bill after the legislature had adjourned, meaning it had no time to try to over ride the veto and offered his own plan.
Williams sued in Franklin Circuit Court contending the veto came after the constitutionally allowed 10 days from the time of passage and asking the court to rule Beshear cannot implement his own road plan without legislative approval. The court previously ruled in Stumbo vs. Fletcher – when the legislature failed to pass a budget during the administration of Ernie Fletcher – that the governor cannot spend money that has not been appropriated by the legislature except on undefined emergency services.
At the time of his veto, Beshear said by passing the road plan in a separate bill the legislature had limited his flexibility to adjust spending in light of revenues and needs, something that previous governors hadn’t faced. But Williams made the case Monday that previous budget memoranda were indeed law because they were part of the two-year budget and “carried the force of law.” That, he said, was no different than this year.
It was also revealed during the testimony that the cabinet has signed an agreement in Franklin Circuit Court not to spend any road funds on any project that has not been authorized by both chambers of the General Assembly until the court rules.
Williams and others also noted that new projects added to Beshear’s plan all came from projects sought by the House but none from the Senate. Afterward, when asked, Williams said he suspected a political motive for that decision.
Hancock assured Williams the cabinet has not abandoned a plan to build an East End bridge over the Ohio River in Jefferson County as reported on a couple of political web logs recently. And he conceded, under questioning from Williams, the cabinet has enough money to continue planning the bridge projects there.
Hancock and Newman said they don’t expect to have enough money in the road fund to build any new projects for the next 18 months. Hancock said only projects already under way will be funded.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

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Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.