High gas not hurting DOH revenues yet

Mannix Porterfield

Maybe it’s a case of Big Oil reasoning, like the Kansas City Song from “Oklahoma,” that they’ve gone as far as they can go in jacking up gas prices before motorists say enough is enough and decide to drive less.

Even with the pumps demanding $4.14 a gallon to quench your vehicle’s thirst, it appears motorists in West Virginia aren’t about to make any radical changes.

Based on revenue collections the past fiscal year, in a comparison with Gov. Joe Manchin’s estimates, the money pouring into the road coffers is down only slightly, Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox revealed Friday.

“In fact, we did very well,” Mattox said. “For the whole fiscal year, we’re down only about $1.5 million.”

Manchin estimated the DOT would take in $405.8 million in fuel taxes for fiscal year 2008, which ended July 1, and the state’s actual collections totaled a little more than $404.2 million.

In his look-ahead, Man-chin counted on getting $88,835,000 in registration fees, and the real number was $86,396,000. In the privilege tax, the state took in $169,463,000. The governor had estimated $167,999,000. Highway litter fees produced $1,878,000 compared to the estimate of $1,681,000.

Overall, in the just-ended fiscal year, collections for highway needs were off a mere .35 percent.

“We were right on the money as far as what was projected versus what we collected,” Mattox said.

In southern counties, however, there does appear to be a trend of using the West Virginia Turnpike less frequently. Contrasting 11-day periods this year and last, sandwiched around the Fourth of July, collections for cars were down 6.5 percent, while commercial trucks have fell 3.5 percent.

Manager Greg Barr attributed the losses to the rising costs of diesel and gasoline.

Overall, however, Mattox interprets the steady stream of revenue for the Division of Highways to a general acceptance of $4 a gallon gas.

“If you noticed, it’s kind of settled in around that $4 mark,” the DOT secretary said.

“I don’t know if the oil companies have figured out that’s about as far as they can raise that price without people changing their habits.”

While summer is less than one-third done, and family vacations to a large extent are yet to be factored in, travel doesn’t seem to have let up much in West Virginia, based on the state’s tax collections.

“We’re still scratching our heads trying to figure it out, too,” Mattox said.

“We just finished fiscal 2008 very, very close to us collecting what our projections were for the entire year. It is amazing. We figured people would be driving less and that would, of course, then impact our tax revenues that we get off the gas. But so far, it’s been hitting projections pretty much.”

Lawmakers last month went along with Gov. Joe Manchin’s proposal to impose a freeze on the escalator in the gas tax, based on the average retail prices between July and October. The moratorium presumably will keep an another 6 cents from being tacked on to the state’s gas tax.

Motorists might stew about the high gas cost but, for the most part, seem to be resigned to expensive fuel. At one Beckley-area convenience store this week, a woman pour-ed $70 into her SUV and laughed.

“I personally don’t think it’s very humorous when I go to fill up,” Mattox said.

So far, the DOH hasn’t been forced to cut back any operations, and summer finds crews plugging potholes, pulling ditches and trimming grass and chopping weeds, the secretary said.

“Since we came in here, we’ve been looking at more efficient ways to operate,” he said.

“But, no, we’ve not had to make any type of drastic changes or anything to this point. So far, we’re operating normally. We’ve not had to do anything different than what we’ve always done.”

— E-mail: mannix@

register-herald.com