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STATE OF OKLAHOMA
1st Session of the 60th Legislature (2025)
SENATE BILL 25 By: Woods
AS INTRODUCED
An Act relating to the funding of transportation
projects; amending 69 O.S. 2021, Section 1913, as
amended by Section 1, Chapter 17, 1st Extraordinary
Session, O.S.L. 2023 (69 O.S. Supp. 2024, Section
1913), which relates to the Rural Economic
Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund;
updating statutory language; updating statutory
reference; modifying population limitation; directing
deposit of certain monies in Rural Economic
Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund;
providing for noncodification; providing an effective
date; and declaring an emergency.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA:
SECTION 1. AMENDATORY 69 O.S. 2021, Section 1913, as
amended by Section 1, Chapter 17, 1st Extraordinary Session, O.S.L.
2023 (69 O.S. Supp. 2024, Section 1913), is amended to read as
follows:
Section 1913. There is hereby established a fund within the
State Treasury to be known as the “Rural Economic Transportation
Reliability and Optimization Fund” to be administered by the
Oklahoma Department of Transportation. The fund shall be a
continuing fund, not subject to fiscal year limitations, and shall
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consist of any general revenues as may be directly appropriated or
otherwise provided by law.
Any monies appropriated to the Rural Economic Transportation
Reliability and Optimization Fund shall not result in a decrease in
historic and traditional total state transportation funding levels
or be used to supplant or replace existing state funds used for
transportation purposes.
In order to ensure that the funds from the Rural Economic
Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund are used to enhance
and not supplant state funding for the Department of Transportation,
the State Board of Equalization shall examine and investigate the
funding levels as described. At the meeting of the State Board of
Equalization held within five (5) days after the monthly
apportionment in February of each year, the State Board of
Equalization shall issue a finding and report which shall state
whether expenditures from the Rural Economic Transportation
Reliability and Optimization Fund were used to enhance or supplant
state funding for the Department of Transportation. If the State
Board of Equalization finds that state funding for the Department of
Transportation was supplanted by funds from the Rural Economic
Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund, the Board shall
specify the amount by which such funding was supplanted. In this
event, the Legislature shall not make any appropriations for the
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ensuing fiscal year until an appropriation in that amount is made to
replenish state funding for the Department of Transportation.
All monies accruing to the credit of the Rural Economic
Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund are hereby
appropriated and shall be used to assist the Department in the
equitable prioritization of construction, repair, and maintenance of
state highways in rural areas where robust economic development has
resulted in traffic safety and circulation difficulties attributed
to significant and unanticipated increases in traffic volumes and as
fully recorded and documented by the Department. “Robust economic
development”, as used in this act section, shall mean those
conditions of the highways of this state in counties with a
population of less than seventy-five thousand (75,000) fifty
thousand (50,000) where traffic volumes have increased to become so
impaired or hazardous as to constitute a threat to the safety of
persons or property traveling over or upon such highways.
When such traffic conditions as described may arise in rural
areas, the Department of Transportation shall engage the Oklahoma
Department of Commerce, the Oklahoma Tax Commission, or other
agencies or entities of the state, as necessary, to confirm the
relationship of traffic conditions to robust economic development.
Once said such relationship is confirmed and documented, the
Department of Transportation may utilize any proceeds from the Rural
Economic Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund in an
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amount not to exceed fifty percent (50%) of the total project costs
to incentivize and leverage the acceleration and prioritization of
improvement projects existing in or to be incorporated into the
Department’s Eight-Year Construction Work Plan.
SECTION 2. NEW LAW A new section of law not to be
codified in the Oklahoma Statutes reads as follows:
There is hereby appropriated to the Rural Economic
Transportation Reliability and Optimization Fund created pursuant to
Section 1913 of Title 69 of the Oklahoma Statutes from any monies
not otherwise appropriated from the General Revenue Fund of the
State Treasury for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026, the sum of
Two Hundred Million Dollars ($200,000,000.00) to be utilized in
accordance with law.
SECTION 3. This act shall become effective July 1, 2025.
SECTION 4. It being immediately necessary for the preservation
of the public peace, health or safety, an emergency is hereby
declared to exist, by reason whereof this act shall take effect and
be in full force from and after its passage and approval.
60-1-392 MSBB 12/13/2024 2:30:46 PM