With tolls off the table in 2021, state officials could look to gasoline tax hikes to salvage Connecticut’s imperiled transportation program. And while neither Gov. Ned Lamont nor legislators have proposed an increase, one of the argument most frequently used to defeat it — Connecticut’s gas taxes are among the nation’s highest — no longer holds true. State analysts recently projected the budget’s $1.7 billion Special Transportation Fund [STF] will run in deficit this fiscal year and in the next three, going insolvent in 2024. Lamont has said he won’t pitch tolls for a third successive year but hasn’t weighed in on the issue of fuel taxes. Max Reiss, his communications director, said the transportation funding issue hasn’t gone away and it’s important some lawmakers are recognizing that. Lamont had hoped to bolster the transportation fund with toll revenues, but lawmakers balked at a plan to charge all vehicles in 2019 and a proposal last January to toll just trucks. The governor was trying to avoid asking for more at the pumps from consumers, who already provide almost $700 million, or about 40% of the revenue needed to support the STF, through two taxes.
Will CT legislators raise the gas tax? With tax rates now below the national average, it’s possible