So where do we get the money?
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 Like most cities and towns, Templeton is heavily dependent on money from the state for its road maintenance program. If adequate money doesn’t come in from the state, roads go unfixed and unmaintained and they deteriorate costing us even more money. The large bulk of the money coming into Templeton for road maintenance comes from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's “Chapter 90 Program.” "Chapter 90" refers to the Massachusetts “Motor Vehicles and Aircraft” law which covers the creation and disbursement of these funds. Chapter 90 funding is just one of the different kinds of local aid Massachusetts cities and towns receive from the state.
According to the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA), to bring roads into a state of good repair here in the Commonwealth, the state’s 30,000 miles of road requires cities and towns to spend a collective $568 million every year. And what are cities and towns actually receiving from the state in the form of local aid? Well, for FY 2015, only $300 million. That's barely half the money our roads actually need, according to the MMA. And even though the $300 million is still well below what’s needed, it’s still much larger than what states and cities have received in years past. For the past few years, the state has released only $200 million annually and far less than that in previous years. That leaves cities and towns to fill the huge gap, which simply isn't going to happen.

So why is the state not properly funding our roads? Probably the biggest reason is the Massachusetts gas tax which is used, in part, to fund Chapter 90 local aid. Although the legislature recently raised the tax from 21 cents to 24 cents in 2013, that was the first increase in the gas tax in more than 2 decades. After factoring in inflation, increased oil costs, and increases in vehicle fuel efficiency, the gas tax is much less able to cover our road maintenance costs than it was 20 years ago. As you may recall, an effort to peg the gas tax to inflation to fix this problem was shot down by Massachusetts voters last November.

So, the 3 cent gas tax hike is a good start, but the bottom line is we need to find more funding if we are going to permanently solve our road maintenance woes. I’m not the only person to arrive at this conclusion. Well respected organizations across the political spectrum like the Massachusetts Municipal Association, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and the Massachusetts Tax Foundation all agree that Massachusetts needs to do a better job of funding its infrastructure. Not only is it more cost effective over the long term, but it results in job creation which will help stimulate the economy as well as create a more efficient economy and a smoother ride for all of us. Everybody wins when our infrastructure is well funded and maintained.


Jeff Bennett