OSKALOOSA — Many southeast Iowa county supervisors are unhappy with the new formula that the Iowa Department of Transportation has developed to distribute the funds from the proposed “Time 21” road fund.

The proposed fund would provide an additional $200 million annually to help offset a projected $27.7 billion shortfall in Iowa road funding over the next 20 years. The $200 million annually would provide funding for the most critical of the state’s road use needs, as identified by the IDOT, and amount to $4 billion over that 20 year period.

This $200 million would be in addition to the money already budgeted to the state’s roads, which is currently approximately $1 billion annually.

According to a study published by the IDOT, the budget shortfall is the result of rising costs for road and bridge maintenance, new construction to meet the needs of an increasingly mobile population, the greater transportation needs of the expanding biofuels industry, the overall aging of the road infrastructure and flat revenues, among other factors.

The IDOT currently distributes revenues to cities and counties based on a Road Use Tax Fund formula, which gives 47.5 percent of the money to the state, for primary roads, like state highways and interstate highways; 32.5 percent goes to the counties, which is used for secondary roads; and 20 percent goes to cities, for municipal roads and city streets.

The Time 21 revenues would be distributed by a different formula, which would send 60 percent of the new funds to the state, 20 percent to the counties and 20 percent to the cities. This new distribution formula would only apply to the new money, not the regular revenue budgeted by the state.

The Mahaska County Board of Supervisors on Monday expressed their concerns about the formula change by passing a resolution, which was sent to area legislators, including State Sens. Tom Reilly and Paul McKinley, State Reps. Eric Palmer, Richard Arnold, along with Geri Huser.

“We just passed as resolution saying we’re in favor of the new money having the same formulation as the old money,” said Board Chair Lawrence Rouw.

He went on to explain why the supervisors are concerned, especially how much of the states road system the counties are responsible for.

“Counties have about eight to nine miles of road for every one mile of road the state has. Traffic is not near as much, but traffic has to get to the state road first,” said Rouw.

He continued, explaining that the counties have to pay just as much for construction and repairs.

“Our cost for construction, our cost to repair our hard surface or replace our hard surface roads has or put in a new hard surface road has went up the same percentage as the what the cost has to the cities or the state to renew theirs, so why do they expect us to be able, on the new money, to get by on considerably less percentage than they’re able to?” wondered Rouw.

Wapello County Supervisor and Iowa State Association of Counties District 5 President Mike Peterson said that District Five, which covers southeastern Iowa, including Mahaska and Wapello counties, voted as group to oppose the change, but they didn’t have much support.

“All the supervisors in the state have considered this resolution, District Five is the only one that is opposing the distribution formula that has been recommended by the state,” said Peterson.

According to Peterson, the state has been vigorous in trying to encourage the counties and cities to accept the new formula.