Unaccountable, unelected toll board approves budget.

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (a mini TxDOT) board on Wednesday approved its budget for fiscal 2006. The spending plan is dominated by construction costs for U.S. 183-A. The authority, created in 2002, has no authority to levy taxes -- but it can, and will, collect daily taxes they call "tolls", mostly from roads we've already paid for.

Traditional toll roads in the U.S. have always been funded with investor dollars. Many of the freeways the CTRMA would like to toll are already paid for. Freeways have never been tolled in the U.S. The unelected, unaccountable board has full discretion to set the toll rate for our freeways.

The CTRMA borrowed most of the $254.8 million it has on hand. In the coming year, according to the budget, the agency will spend $125.8 million to build U.S. 183-A, a tollway in Cedar Park and Leander, and $9.8 million to pay off debt. In addition, the new additional bureaucracy will spend $3.3 million on operations and $3.1 million on studies of future freeway toll projects.

By the end of the 2005-06 budget year, the agency estimates, it will have $119 million left. The authority will not have a steady source of revenue until U.S. 183-A opens and begins generating tolls, scheduled to happen in March 2007.

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