DALLAS - The Kansas Department of Transportation will defer about $300 million of maintenance projects because of fund transfers to balance the state budget, officials said.
With legislatively approved transfers in 2014, the total fiscal year 2015 transfer is $421 million, according to transportation secretary Mike King. Brownback's budget recommendation proposes a transfer of $377 million for fiscal 2016 and $378 million for fiscal 2017.
"Anticipated year-end balances are very fluid," King said in a statement. "They are shaped by a number of ever-changing variables and assumptions."
Transportation projects in Kansas are funded by the state's 10-year, $8 billion transportation plan known as T-Works. A sales tax increase passed by the Legislature in 2010 provides revenue for the projects.
KDOT hopes to push the maintenance work to later years in the transportation plan, which runs through 2020.
"Future savings from lower-than-anticipated bids and other agency savings, combined with additional revenue sources, will go toward funding projects delayed to the latter years of the T-WORKS program," King said.
KDOT assessed two types of projects in deciding which get funded. Preservation projects include a variety of work ranging from light resurfacing and bridge repair to full pavement reconstruction and bridge replacement. Expansion projects add lanes or interchanges to a roadway.
The Kansas Legislature is meeting in Topeka on the 2016 budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Lawmakers also must approve spending cuts to erase the deficit in the current fiscal year ending June 30.
