Perret

BATON ROUGE, La - A recent legislative vote to stop the administration's latest multi-million dollar raid on the Louisiana Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) reflects the public's demand that TTF dollars be spent on transportation improvement projects, according to the state's top transportation advocacy group.

State Sen. Robert Adley made an impassioned 

Adley

plea to the Louisiana Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget last week to reject the Division of Administration's request to transfer about $6 million from the trust fund to cover state police cuts. Kenneth Perret, president of the Louisiana Good Roads and Transportation Association, said Adley showed courage and leadership in convincing the committee to reject the transfer from the TTF.

"Senator Adley stood up for everyone in Louisiana who is tired of the condition of our roads and the diversion of dollars that could be used to improve them," Perret said. "This was a watershed moment in not only restoring money to the trust fund but restoring trust to the citizens who voted to dedicate those transportation taxes to transportation improvement projects."

Adley told the budget committee members that the frequent raids on the TTF to balance the general fund is wrong because the state's voters decided in 1989 to dedicate the TTF to transportation needs. In the past several years, the administration and legislature have drained tens of millions of dollars from the TTF to cover general fund shortfalls in what Adley and others believe is an inappropriate use of the gas tax revenues that fund the TTF.

"Somebody, sooner or later, has to stand up and say, 'we've got to stop this. We just can't keep doing this.'" Adley said in the meeting.

Adley, who is term limited, warned his fellow committee members they will have to answer for their complicity in allowing transportation tax dollars to be spent on other budget expenses. "The public's going to want to know what happened to our roads," he said.