Connecticut’s trucking industry will face a small tax hike next month when the state tax on diesel fuel rises slightly more than 3 cents per gallon. The diesel tax and highway mileage fee each represent a relatively modest share of the state budget’s Special Transportation Fund, which covers operating costs for the Departments of Transportation and Motor Vehicles and debt payments on bonding for highway, bridge and rail projects. Final totals for the current fiscal year, which closes June 30, weren’t available this week, but Boughton said the diesel tax collected about $133.5 million in 2022-23, when the rate also was 49.2 cents per gallon. Those collections represented 7% of total STF expenditures in 2022-23 and about 6% in the current year. If the Department of Transportation can launch more construction projects — thereby triggering the need for more transportation borrowing — the STF surplus next fiscal year would be just 4%, according to the governor’s budget office. And by 2025-26, the STF would run a very modest $8 million deficit, equal to roughly one third of 1%. Connecticut’s construction industry and trades say the state’s transportation infrastructure needs even larger investments than the administration is aiming for to overcome decades of neglect.
