BATON ROUGE (AP) — The Louisiana House wants to put the brakes on spending state gasoline tax money for items other than roadwork.
Lawmakers voted 92-5 Tuesday for a proposal by Rep. Terry Landry, a New Iberia Democrat, that would cap the dollars that can be diverted from the gas tax trust fund to state police operations each year.
Under Landry's bill, up to $40 million from the trust fund could be spent on state police in the fiscal year that begins July 1. A year later, that would drop to $25 million. After that, it would be limited to $10 million annually.
Louisiana has a $12 billion backlog of transportation projects. Landry called it bad policy to shift dollars away from the needed work.