PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — For years, Pennsylvanians have paid the third-highest gas tax in the nation, estimating that $7 or $8 a fill-up went toward repairing our bridges and roads.

But $4.2 billion of that sum hasn’t been used to fix things.

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“If taxes are supposed to go somewhere. They should go to the right place to get these things fixed,” a man said on Wednesday.

Two years ago, former Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale discovered that those billions had been diverted to pay the state police instead. He calls it a betrayal of public trust.

“The public has a right to be outraged,” DePasquale said. “When they pay gas tax, they assume the money is going to the roads and bridges they drive on, and the idea that $4.2 billion has been misappropriated, the public has a right to ‘be outraged about it.’

Over the past decade, much of the gas tax has gone to cover state police patrols in municipalities that don’t have their own police department. And in a press release, the governor’s office said it had tried in vain to find a solution.

“Throughout this administration, the governor has proposed various ways to manage state police funding, none of which have been supported by the Republican-led legislature, nor have they offered solutions. strong funding.”

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State Senator Camera Bartolotta, of R-Washington County, said, “They wanted to impose a $25 per captive tax on every municipality that used the state police. These people are already paying taxes every year.

Bartolotta said Gov. Tom Wolf’s solution would have an unfair impact on rural districts, but lawmakers agree a solution must be found.

“If the legislators at the time who passed this gas tax did so in order to fix our roads and bridges, that’s where the money should go,” she said. .

On Wednesday, the governor’s office also disputed DePasquale’s claim that if the money had been properly allocated, he could have solved a bridge problem like the Fern Hollow Bridge, saying the money was for bridges in the area. state, not county or city-owned bridges.

But with 2,800 problematic bridges across the state, DePasquale said the distinction holds little water.

“Even if it’s all state money, that only means it frees up other funds to help communities run their bridges. I mean, we’re all in this together,” he said. he declares.

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All now agree that this money should go to the bridges and match the $1 billion in federal money coming to Pennsylvania under the infrastructure bill. They just couldn’t come up with a solution.