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An overhaul of the Pulaski Skyway is one of billions of dollars in state transportation projects that will begin or extend into Fiscal 2016, when Transportation Commissioner James Simpson said the department will be confronted with a $620 million funding shortfall.

(Frances Micklow/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — While the state should be able to pay for highway projects planned for the upcoming fiscal year, the state transportation commissioner said he was looking down the road at a $620 million shortfall in the department's capital budget for fiscal 2016.

“We’re going to need about $620 million, either financed or cash, to get through the ’16 program,” Commissioner James Simpson told lawmakers today. “’We’ve got $620 million that we need to come up with.”

Simpson appeared before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee during a hearing on transportation elements of Gov. Chris Christie's $34.4 billion proposed budget for the fiscal 2015, which starts July 1.

But beyond the upcoming budget, Simpson's comments came in the context of an ongoing debate over funding the state's depleted Transportation Trust Fund.

The state’s $3.7 billion in transportation projects for Fiscal 2015, including $2.5 billion for roads and bridges and $1.2 billion for NJ Transit projects is covered, Simpson said. Those funds including $1.46 billion in federal dollars, $1.23 billion from the trust fund, and $375 million from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is paying for one of the biggest projects, including a two-year, $1 billion overhaul of the Pulaski Skyway.

“We’re okay for ’15,” Simpson assured the committee chairman, Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen).

Simpson revealed the looming Fiscal 2016 deficit voluntarily after he had been sharply questioned on the subject by members of the Assembly Budget Committee three days before.

When Assembly committee members pressed Simpson on long-term plans to fund state transporation projects, he conceded there was no long-term plan, including how to pay for projects scheduled for Fiscal 2016, which begins in 14 months.

New Jersey's main transportation funding source - apart from federal tax dollars - is the Transportation Trust Fund, financed by the state’s historically low, politically sensitive gasoline tax. But the fund is all but depleted, and some Democratic lawmakers have called for hiking the gas tax to replenish the fund.

In March, state Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Union) introduced a bill to raise the tax by 15 cents over three years to stablize transportation funding and escape the upward spiral of continuous borrowing and rising debt service.

But his bill has not moved, and Christie has vowed not to raise the gas tax.

Simpson told senators that two ways of paying for projects were to raise tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, or hike the gasoline tax. But, he quickly added, “for the record, the commissioner’s not advocating for a toll increase or a gas tax.”

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