State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Wednesday he concurs with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s concerns about the amount of debt the agency is carrying and the need for financial relief.
In fact, Mr. DePasquale sounded a similar alarm three years ago in a special report on the agency’s debt and the situation he described then has only grown worse. His office is in the midst of a full audit of the commission that is expected to be released in the fall.
“I know for a fact they can’t keep raising tolls or borrowing money because people will quit using the turnpike,” Mr. DePasquale said Wednesday. “If that happens, it will put a lot of that traffic on local roads that can’t handle it. Things have to change.”
The Turnpike Commission on Tuesday voted to raise tolls for the ninth year in a row — pushing the cost for a car trip from Ohio to New Jersey up 6 percent to $51.85 — and announced that it would review every proposed construction project to make sure the agency can afford to pay for it. Chairman Sean Logan said the commission’s debt payments make up about $600 million of its $980 million annual budget, a debt percentage that he said is growing and unsustainable.
In his 2013 report and again Wednesday, Mr. DePasquale said a major culprit is the requirement that the turnpike pay $450 million a year to PennDOT to help pay for public transit. That requirement initially was set up under a 2007 law known as Act 44 that called for the annual payment using money from proposed tolls on Interstate 80.
The U.S. Department of Transportation rejected the new tolls, but the state Legislature left the turnpike payment to PennDOT in place. The agency has had to borrow money and raise tolls to meet that obligation.
“It’s a major problem,” Mr. DePasquale said. “This is a problem they didn’t create on their own. There’s no question that has to change.”
Mr. Logan said Tuesday the commission has been warning the Legislature about its concerns for the past several years during House and Senate transportation committee meetings. The agency formally will ask the Legislature this year to eliminate the payment to PennDOT.
“We do need relief from our Act 44 payments,” said Mr. Logan, who voted for the payments when he was a state senator. “We’ve been bringing it up every year. Now we’re going to go to the General Assembly and ask for relief.”
In the 2013 report, the auditor general projected cross-state tolls would increase to near $50 by 2021 based on turnpike toll increases of 3 to 3.5 percent to help make the PennDOT payments. However, tolls will pass $50 in January, four years earlier, after toll hikes of 12 percent in 2014, 5 percent in 2015 and 6 percent each in 2016 and 2017.
“When our audit is finished, if our data supports what [turnpike officials] are saying, I’ll be screaming through the halls of the Legislature telling them this has to change,” Mr. DePasquale said. “If they keep raising tolls and people stop using the turnpike, that’s going to end up clogging the back roads and making things even worse.”
Legislative leaders and Gov. Tom Wolf’s office could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Ed Blazina: 412-263-1470 or eblazina@post-gazette.com.
First Published: July 21, 2016, 4:00 a.m.