Louisiana’s top highway official is repeating his call for more funds for state roads, saying that higher fuel taxes are not the only way to bring in money and suggesting ways to boost the amount of money applied to roads.

“There are many ways we can do this. We don’t have to go ‘Zap!’ to the [fuel] taxes,” Kam Movassaghi, secretary of the state Department of Transportation and Development, told The Advocate.

Movassaghi said lawmakers have rerouted $120 million a year of DOTD’s money from the 20-cent-per-gallon state fuel tax to nonhighway programs, such as funding State Police and local transportation funds.

“If I get that $120 million, I’ll be great,” he said.

Movassaghi said he would like to see state truck-licensing fees, which generate about $40 million a year, go to DOTD and possibly even an increase in license-plate fees for all vehicles to generate money for roads.

He said Louisiana is unique in that the sole source of state funding of highways is the fuel tax.

“This is the only state in the nation where we put all our eggs in one basket,” Movassaghi said.

Movassaghi has often said DOTD needs more money to address maintenance problems, and he has previously suggested raising fuel taxes, the newspaper reported.

Andy Kopplin, the governor’s chief of staff, said Gov. Kathleen Blanco has no plans to increase fuel taxes, shift where the fuel tax money goes or take any other action to change DOTD’s funding sources or levels.

He said Blanco wants the agency to first focus on making itself as efficient as it can be.

Instead, Kopplin told The New Orleans Times-Picayune, the administration will use “innovative financing” to pay for road construction, such as borrowing against anticipated federal highway construction dollars, selling more bonds and possibly building some toll roads.