Truckers who pay tolls normally expect that their toll money is going either to build or maintain the highway.

But a newspaper in Pennsylvania reported recently that a good chunk of the fees paid on three of that state’s toll roads – more than half – went just to pay operating expenses, including some toll collectors who make more than most of the truckers paying the bill.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looked at expenses on the Beaver Valley Expressway, Greensburg Bypass and Mon-Fayette Expressway, all operated by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. Some toll collectors were paid more than $70,000 annual salaries, the newspaper reported. Turnpike commission officials said the salaries were required under a labor contract.

Tolls in Pennsylvania have been a point of contention in the trucking community recently.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission announced in January it had approved a more than 40 percent increase in tolls on the state’s main toll road. The agency said the new rates, which will be effective Aug. 1, were the first increase in tolls on the road since 1991.

The current toll for an 80,000-pound, class 8 truck traveling the entire length of the turnpike’s 359-mile main line would increase from $105.55 to $150.75. That amount includes the ticketed section of the road, plus the fee collected at the cash gate at the Ohio border.

The Post-Gazette report did not address expenses on the main line.

Turnpike officials told the newspaper that if debt service were included, the toll revenue on the three toll roads would not cover expenses. Recent toll road expansions have cost the state $1.4 billion.