BATON ROUGE, LA — The Ports Association of Louisiana (PAL) supports proposed constitutional amendment #4 on the November 6, 2018 ballot to ensure that the gasoline, and other types of fuel taxes that are already constitutionally dedicated and placed in Louisiana’s Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) are only used for the state’s transportation and infrastructure system.
Under current law, the TFF may fund construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, ports, flood control, airports, transit, the Parish Transportation Fund, and may go to the State Police for traffic control purposes. This amendment would prohibit TTF dollars funding State Police. The Louisiana Legislature has not used TTF dollars for the State Police since 2016. This amendment would ensure that with a more than $14 billion backlog in transportation and infrastructure projects, the $700 million that went to the State Police in several years before 2016, could not be allocated again.
“There is no question that the state needs to further invest in our Port Priority Program, which is funded from the TFF,” PAL President Drew Heaphy, executive director of the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District said. “In order to request more dollars for any program, we must assure the taxpayers that the dollars they are allocating to these most vital projects to grow our economy, revitalize our communities and improve our quality of life so that our children and grandchildren remain in Louisiana are indeed being spent where they are promised.”
Early voting for the Nov. 6 election begins this Tuesday, October 23, and runs through October 30, with the exception of Sunday, October 28.
