New York State’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund (DHBTF) was created in 1992 to provide a sustainable source of financing for ongoing transportation maintenance needs. But since the mid-1990s, an increasing share of the fund’s revenues–principally fuel taxes and motor vehicle fees–has been used to cover debt service on transportation-related bonds, even as the dedicated fund was expanded to cover the operating expenses of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the regular snow-and-ice clearing operations of the Department of Transportation.
This year, a little over half the DHBTF receipts will go to pay interest and principal on debt. By 2012-13, the debt service ratio will rise to an all-time high of nearly 73 percent, as illustrated in this chart from the state comptroller’s report on the 2009-10 enacted budget.
Through 2013-14, the DHBTF has a funding gap of $3.5 billion. Barring deep capital spending cutbacks, this will have to be backfilled by the state budget’s general fund, which is already headed deeply into the red over that period.
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