The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority has fired back at state Auditor General Robert Cronson, who has suggested that the authority may be charging motorists too much to use its 273-mile system.
Most of the authority`s $200 million surplus is earmarked for lane additions and other improvements to the Tri-State Tollway over the next three years, according to Thomas H. Morsch Jr., the authority`s executive director. ”In 1995 we would be out of money under the current rate structure,”
Morsch said.
Morsch`s remarks came in an interview after a briefing on the authority`s 1991 budget at Thursday`s board of directors meeting, where Morsch also announced his intention to resign from his $80,000-a-year post.
In his audit of tollway finances for the year ending December 1989, Cronson criticized the authority for basing its toll structure on
”inadequate” documentation.
He also reiterated his belief that money collected on the Northwest, East-West and Tri-State Tollways was improperly spent to pay off debt service on bonds sold to build the North-South Tollway.
Morsch told the board that the budget figures will be included in a report that the authority is preparing in response to the audit.
The board agreed to more than double the expenditure the authority will make in completing the Tri-State work. The new amount will be $350 million.
Asked if the authority planned to raise tolls anytime soon, Morsch said,
”We don`t preceive one at this time. Toll rates are at a reasonable level.”
Revenue from toll collections increased 13.3 percent in 1990, but revenue growth is projected at 2 percent a year between 1991 and 1995.
The staff also noted that the Tri-State Tollway generates 50 percent of the tollway`s annual revenue. The North-South this year made up 10 percent, according to the report.
Morsch, appointed the authority`s top executive in December 1984, by Gov. James Thompson, formerly worked for Thompson as an assistant for economic affairs.
”It`s very appropriate that I resign at this time,” Morsch said, adding that the fact that a new governor takes office in January ”factors into my personal” reasons for stepping down.
Morsch said, however, that Gov.-elect Jim Edgar had not asked him to resign.
