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Otter Road Funding Panel Due to Meet in December

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- With Idaho officials trying to plug holes in the state budget, most lawmakers aren't thinking transportation funding as the 2010 Legislature nears. But Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter is doing his best to steer at least some of the conversation back to highways. He's organized a third meeting of the Governor's Task Force on Modernizing Transportation Funding for Dec. 2 in Boise. There, transportation experts plan to discuss how other states are modifying their approach to funding road and bridge maintenance, as dollars grow scarcer and many expect federal funding sources not to be enough to solve funding dilemmas. Tom Warne, the former director of the Utah Department of Transportation who has set up a transportation consulting shop, is set to speak. Otter's highway funding task force was set up after the 2009 Legislature, where state House members rejected his plans to raise the gas tax to pay for more road work. The panel is due to issue a final report no later than December 2010.