Kaine: No major changes in state roads bill

By News in Brief
Published: June 23, 2008

HOPEWELL—Major provisions of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s nearly $1 billion annual highway funding plan will remain fundamentally unchanged from the draft he outlined six weeks ago, Kaine said Monday night.

Kaine’s bill incorporating the new statewide tax and fee proposals was expected to be introduced late last week, just ahead of a special legislative session beginning Monday called exclusively for transportation funding.

Kaine told about 130 people at the ninth of 10 town hall-style forums where he tried to rouse public support for his plan that he would make unspecified minor alterations.

“What I’m doing right now is writing a bill. Ideas I’ve heard from these town hall meetings will help me write this bill better,” Kaine said.

But he restated his intent to stick with the fundamental funding proposals behind his proposal.

They include a $10 annual increase in the fee to register cars, a boost in the titling tax on the purchase price of cars from 3 percent to 4 percent and an increase in the grantor’s tax homeowners pay on the sale of real estate.

The registration fee and the titling tax increases will be exclusively for upkeep and maintenance of the state’s system of highways and bridges. Most of the increase in the grantor’s tax is designated for rail and mass transit funding.

Without substantial new funding to take care of highway maintenance, the amount of cash diverted each year from new road projects to pay for upkeep will increase to nearly $600 million by 2014.

Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Kaine: No major changes in state roads bill

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