By Philip Sean Curran
Monmouth County will use $10 million that came from the state Transportation Trust Fund to help pay for seven bridge replacement projects, part of infrastructure improvements that the county does annually.
Freeholder Director Thomas A. Arnone said this week that those funds would defray some, but not all, of the costs of $16.3 million worth of work that the county has planned in Middletown, Keyport, Union Beach, Colts Neck, Tinton Falls, Howell, Upper Freehold, Wall and Neptune Township. Those include two bridges over Comptons Creek in Middletown – one on Church Street that will cost $2.2 million total and the other on Navesink River Road to cost $2.1 million.
The county “continues to be proactive in trying to find ways to keep our infrastructure up to standard without putting the burden on our taxpayers in Monmouth County,” Arnone said Aug. 6 by phone. The balance of the funding also will come from the state, through a different funding stream.
The $10.1 million for Monmouth is part of an overall $161.25 million from the trust fund that will be split among the 21 counties, according to the state Department of Transportation. Monmouth’s total is the fourth largest, behind Bergen, Middlesex and Burlington counties.
“County aid is just one of many programs that demonstrate the Murphy administration’s commitment to our communities by improving infrastructure throughout New Jersey at every level of government,” state DOT Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said Aug.1 in a news release announcing the grants.
The state disburses the money “based on population and road mileage in each county,” DOT spokesman Steve Schapiro said Aug. 1.
Arnone said that in the past, state funds used to be given to the counties in equal amounts.
“Counties are required to submit eligible projects to NJDOT for approval prior to Dec. 1, 2019,” Schapiro said. “Once the county awards the project, it must submit the awarded project cost to NJDOT for the funds.”
The Transportation Trust Fund, or TTF, is reliant, in large part, on the state gas tax for its revenue. In 2016, state lawmakers agreed to raise the tax by 23 cents, from 14.5 cents a gallon to 37.5, in a move to ensure the solvency of the fund.
“Anytime you raise a tax, it’s not a good thing,” state Assemblyman Eric Houghtaling (D-11) said Aug. 6. “But hopefully, I would say with this tax, you’re able to see some of the results of the increase, which not always happens when you increase a tax.”
Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso (R-13) said Aug. 6. that she initially doubted that the money from the gas tax “would go where it needed to go.”
“Like every other tax that they put in place, it’s not applied where they promise you that it will be applied,” she said. “But in this particular case, people like (state Sen.) Declan O’Scanlon and others have made sure that the money is being used where it’s earmarked for and what it was promised to be used for.”
DiMaso, a first-term lawmaker, lamented how infrastructure around the state had been ignored for many years. Some roads were so bad to travel on that “you could lose a filling some days,” DiMaso said.
Yet that is changing.
“If you have driven on the parkway recently or Route 35, 36,” she said, “you can see the dollars are being put to good use.”
But a provision in the law allowed the state to raise the tax to ensure enough revenue was being generated, called the Highway Fuels Revenue Target. In October, the tax grew an additional 4.3 cents to its current 41.4 cents per gallon – putting it among the highest gas taxes in the nation.
The state has not ruled out a further rate hike this year.
“We expect to announce a decision before the end of the month,” state Treasury Department spokeswoman Jennifer Sciortino said Aug. 6. “Right now we’re in the process of reviewing fuel consumption data and consulting with the Legislative Budget finance officer, as we’re required to do by law.”
If there is another increase, New Jersey will have company. In July, 12 other states, from California to Ohio raised their gas taxes, according to the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The tax in Ohio went up nearly 11 cents per gallon, while the one in Illinois rose by 19, the organization reported.
