Gov. Bob Ferguson on March 31 signed a spending plan for the state transportation system that he said bolsters preservation of highways and will “deliver projects that Washingtonians rely on to get to where they need to go.”

The $16.6 billion supplemental budget expends about $1.2 billion more than the two-year transportation spending blueprint lawmakers approved last year. Under another bill, Washington will do more borrowing to cover added transportation spending.

The largest share of new budget outlays is for preserving and maintaining highways and bridges. Ferguson has made this a focal point in his first term as governor.

“I called on the Legislature to make a historic investment in our infrastructure and they delivered,” he said before signing Senate Bill 6005. “Our state needs to keep investing.”

For highway preservation, $300 million is new, and another $40 million comes from unspent dollars in the 2023-25 budget.

There’s also $65 million in federal funding to repair state highways after the December floods and $45 million of state financing for loans to counties and cities to deal with localized damage as they await federal reimbursements.

A separate highway maintenance program is getting a $40 million injection above what was originally approved last year.

Ferguson said some of the new dollars will pay for paving an estimated 600 miles of roads this summer and replacing the Hansen Road overpass across Interstate 90 in Moses Lake. The state closed that overpass in January, citing safety concerns due to its deterioration.

Borrowing increase

Senate Bill 6225, which Ferguson also signed on March 31, authorizes the sale of more than $1.3 billion in bonds over the next six years.

Of the total, $800 million will go toward projects in the 2022 Move Ahead transportation package. This will free up cash for the new commitments made in the budget.

Ferguson asserted that the legislation would help deliver projects “without raising taxes.”

The law also increases existing bond authority for work in the Highway 520 corridor by $500 million and taps into previously approved but unused bonding capacity. 

This bond bill was a point of contention between the two chambers. While the Senate unanimously approved the legislation, Democrats and Republicans in the House were initially united in their opposition. Passage of a bond bill requires a 60% majority in each chamber.

After late-session negotiations led to a smaller bond amount, Democrats approved the bill on a party-line 59-38 vote. That margin achieved the 60% threshold.

The bonds will be repaid with proceeds from the state’s gas tax and vehicle-related fees.

Ferries and airplanes

Absent from the supplemental budget are new resources to buy more hybrid electric ferries, as Ferguson wanted. Lawmakers early on rejected the governor’s request to borrow $1 billion to build three new vessels, in addition to the three plug-in vessels on order with a Florida shipyard.

On March 31, as Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, chair of the House Transportation Committee, stood at his side, the governor joked about not “getting everything I wanted” on ferries and vowed to renew his efforts in the 2027 session.

Also that day, the governor signed House Bill 2711, which contains several provisions affecting aircraft owners and generates some new revenue. 

It repeals a 10% surtax on the sale, lease or transfer of private aircraft valued at more than $500,000 that was set to take effect on April 1.

The law hikes the state’s aircraft fuel tax by 7 cents a gallon on Nov. 1. The rise from 18 cents to 25 cents is a nearly 40% jump.

And on Jan. 1, the registration fee for aircraft will double from $15 to $30 and the excise tax for planes will go up too. Both assessments will increase 2% each year starting in 2028. 

As of the end of March, the excise tax ranges from $20 for a home-built plane to $4,000 for a commuter aircraft. The new range will be $120 to $8,000. Commercial drones will, for the first time, become subject to an annual excise tax of $120 starting in 2027.

Other elements of the law create a new state account to support airport preservation projects and development of sustainable aviation fuel, and exempt motor home sales made between July 1 and Dec. 31 from a new luxury tax on vehicles valued at more than $100,000.

On April 1, Ferguson is scheduled to act on new operating and construction budgets. Like transportation, these will make adjustments to biennial spending plans that lawmakers approved and the governor signed in 2025.

This story is republished from the Washington State Standard, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that provides original reporting, analysis and commentary on Washington state government and politics.