By Ashley Speagle

Correspondent

ATLANTA -- Members of the Senate Transportation Committee said Thursday that the State Transportation Board made a huge mistake changing its accounting system so it can spend money it doesn't have on highway projects.

"I am shocked," said Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon. "It appears to me to be a totally self-destructive act, almost an act of sabotage when things are finally coming together in this state to try to move transportation forward."

Accrual accounting allows the transportation department to commit to multiyear projects without having money available for the entire project in advance.

The Transportation Board dropped the method in 2008, after state auditors said it was unconstitutional. But on Jan. 21, Transportation Board members flouted the auditors and voted to go back to accrual accounting to get transportation projects moving.

But it's still unconstitutional, Chief Auditor Russell Hinton told Senate Transportation Committee members Thursday.

"It's a constitutional issue with regard to not being able to contract unless you have an available source of funds," Mr. Hinton said.

GDOT's spending on highway projects nearly doubled in 2007 using accrual accounting, Mr. Hinton said, and the agency had to use nearly $2 billion in accrued federal funds to balance its budget.

effect on state's bond rating

Committee Chairman Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, said he was concerned not only with what he called the hasty actions of the state Transportation Board but with the possible effect on Georgia's AAA bond rating.

Susan Ridley, director of the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission, said it's "impossible to predict how the rating agencies will react to any specific action of the state."

"I do think the disclosure of a board acting to violate state law (by taking an unconstitutional action) would raise questions," she added.

Gov. Sonny Perdue said the state's prized bond rating could help keep interest rates low for his statewide transportation plan, which proposes $300 million in bonds for the fiscal 2011 budget.

Transportation was on a lot of minds Thursday as Democratic lawmakers announced their own plan. The minority party's highway blueprint calls for a 1 percent sales tax imposed on created districts in metro Atlanta to fund transportation projects.

Sen. Mullis and other lawmakers said they hope to cooperate with Gov. Perdue and Democrats to finally pass transportation plans this session.

"Transportation is not a partisan issue," Sen. Mullis said in a news release. "We should all come together, as we did in the Senate, to work on solutions that are best for all Georgians."

Sen. John Douglas, R-Social Circle, said transportation is the state's biggest problem next to the budget and needs to be fixed.

"The people in this state have very little patience and they see the turmoil, they see the problems, and they're not going to put up with it for very long," he said.

Ashley Speagle covers the Georgia legislature. Contact her at speagle.ashley@gmail.com.