CHARLESTON — The secretary of West Virginia Department of Transportation told a senate committee Tuesday that no decisions have been made regarding a proposal made by the governor to take road bond money meant for major projects for fixing secondary roads.

The Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee heard a presentation on deferred road maintenance from Tom Smith, secretary of the state Department of Transportation.

During his State of the State address Jan. 9, Gov. Jim Justice briefly proposed taking road bond revenue from the Roads to Prosperity program for use in repairing secondary roads in the state.

Committee Chairman Charles Clements, R-Wetzel, a former executive director of the West Virginia Route 2 and I-68 Authority, said he was concerned that the governor or transportation officials might downgrade projects that road bond supporters campaigned on.

“I’ve heard so much talk about taking money from the road bond to use for routine maintenance,” Clements said. “When the governor proposed this road bond and we went out and sold the road bond to the public, there was a list of projects on there. We knew there probably wasn’t enough to complete all of them, but by us taking money out of the road bond on issues of routine maintenance, are we not shortening that list?

The Roads to Prosperity Amendment passed with 73 percent support of 11 percent of the registered voters who approved it in during a special election in October 2017. It gave the legislature authority to sell up to $1.6 billion in general obligation bonds for major road and bridge projects.

Smith told the committee that the governor is responding to the requests made to his office for secondary road repair. The department also launched DriveForwardWV.com, where people can make roadwork requests.

“(Justice) has heard people throughout West Virginia say you haven’t taken as much care of the secondary roads system as we’d like you to,” Smith said. “He’s really pressed us to find ways to take care of that and do more for the secondary system. We are working on options with his office and have not yet come to conclusions on that.”

Despite the governor’s State of the State statement, Smith said the department is looking at multiple ways to increase funding for secondary road maintenance and has not made any decisions as to taking monies meant for road bond projects.

“What we’re trying to do is find ways to do additional work on the secondary program and have yet not come to the conclusion to what that actual answer is,” Smith said. “It’s premature for me to say that is the direction we’re going. We just haven’t concluded that yet.”

State Sen. Bob Plymale, D-Wayne, said he also went out during the lead up to the Roads to Prosperity vote to encourage his constituents to vote for the bill. He said reducing any of the road bond projects would cause problems down the road.

“The biggest concern I have in the district I represent are the projects that I helped sell to the public — I think — could be on this chopping block,” Plymale said. “I’m really concerned with that, because then what I’ve done is a disservice to my constituents. These roads are supposed to be on it and I’m afraid they won’t be. That concerns me.”

Citing a 2015 report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways created by former Gov. Jim Justice, Smith said the report called for $1.3 billion annually for road projects, including $750 million for road maintenance. Starting in 2013 – when the commission first formed – to this year, the state is $4.5 billion behind in deferred maintenance.

“The Roads to Prosperity is the first new funding — the first time anything has been done was with Governor Justice’s Road to Prosperity program as far as bringing new dollars to the table,” Smith said.

Of the $2.8 billion in funding from the road bonds, Smith the department is investing $2 billion in preservation activities, such as bridge maintenance, slide repair, and resurfacing. Approximately $1 billion of that has been spent in the first 18 months for preservation activities.

“We still have a backlog of $2.5 billion dollars that has never been funded,” Smith said. “The governor’s program really allows us to attack that backlog, but it doesn’t resolve all the issues. The backlog is bigger than what the program is.”