Mississippi’s top transportation official said Monday that the state is making significant progress in rebuilding and modernizing its infrastructure. More stable state funding is ensuring that federal money is no longer being left on the table.
Brad White, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, told the Stennis-Capitol Press Forum that the 2026 legislative session marked one of the most pro-transportation periods in decades, with lawmakers approving major investments and structural changes aimed at long-term stability.
White said the current level of state funding, and the consistent nature of that funding, is allowing the state to take advantage of all the federal money available to Mississippi. This is a significant change from the past.
White also said the six-laning of I-55 between Madison and Gluckstadt will be funded, with an announcement coming in the next month or so. This will allow for a new I-55 interchange at the new Reunion bridge north of the Madison interchange. He predicted the new interchange could be completed in as little as two years.
White said the repeal of a sunset provision on lottery funding will provide about $80 million annually for infrastructure projects, offering predictable funding for road maintenance and expansion. He also highlighted a $1.6 billion spending authority for fiscal year 2027, part of an overall budget approaching $2 billion.
“These are real investments that affect safety, mobility and economic development across Mississippi,” White said.
He emphasized that the agency has improved its ability to draw down federal funds by eliminating earmarks that previously limited flexibility. Mississippi now captures all available federal highway dollars and even competes for unused funds from other states, he said.
White pointed to more than 3,100 miles of two-lane roads paved since 2018 and about $5 billion in ongoing projects, including bridge repairs, safety upgrades and capacity expansions.
The director also addressed challenges highlighted by Winter Storm Fern, a rare ice storm that paralyzed much of the state earlier this year. He said MDOT logged roughly 30,000 man-hours responding to the storm and spent about $1.25 million in overtime, deploying salt, brine and other resources.
“We hadn’t seen a storm like that in 30 years,” White said. “It exposed weaknesses in how we respond to winter weather.”
In response, MDOT plans to expand contracts with private contractors, invest in upgraded equipment such as improved snowplows, and adopt a more centralized response strategy. The agency is also working to increase staffing levels after years of workforce reductions.
White said staffing shortages have reduced the agency’s ability to respond quickly to emergencies, noting that maintenance crews that once covered single counties are now responsible for multiple areas.
Lawmakers have also invested $10 million in a multimodal fund aimed at leveraging federal dollars for ports, rail, airports and waterways. White said diversifying transportation infrastructure is key to economic growth.
During a question-and-answer session, White said Mississippi has largely overcome past funding shortfalls that slowed major projects for more than a decade. Increased fuel tax revenue, lottery funding and legislative support have helped revive capacity projects such as highway expansions and congestion relief efforts.
However, he warned that the current funding model, which relies heavily on fuel taxes, may not be sustainable as electric vehicles become more common and fuel efficiency improves.
“We need to modernize how we fund transportation,” White said, adding that policymakers will ultimately decide how to adapt.
White also discussed specific projects, including the Reunion Parkway interchange in Madison County, which requires additional interstate widening before it can be completed. He said the project could move forward within months, with construction potentially taking two to three years.
On safety, White urged drivers to slow down and remain alert in work zones, emphasizing the risks faced by road crews.
“Work zones are not inconveniences — they are workplaces,” he said.
White declined to take a firm position on proposed legislation that would have expanded radar enforcement in smaller jurisdictions but said stricter enforcement could improve safety.
He also acknowledged that Mississippi could benefit from more preventive maintenance techniques, such as crack sealing, but said the state is still focused on bringing roads up to acceptable standards before expanding such practices.
White said MDOT’s goal remains consistent: to use taxpayer dollars efficiently while improving safety and economic opportunity across the state.
“Our responsibility is to manage these resources responsibly and deliver results,” he said.
Brad White Speech Transcript
I want to express my appreciation to the Stennis Press Club for inviting me here, and to the members of the press, thank you for what you do every day. I think that you play a critical role in keeping the public informed and keeping agencies like ours accountable, and the accountability makes us better, and I'm for one, welcoming. In transportation, we don't just move cars, we move information, and if we don't tell people where we're going, they will assume that we're lost. Senator Cochran used to always say that people are normally down on what they're not up on.
So we try to work well with our partners in the press to make sure that we're keeping the public aware of where our work is, what they're going to encounter as they navigate our system. On behalf of MDOT, I want to express my appreciation to the legislature and to Governor Reeves for their continued commitment to strengthening Mississippi's infrastructure during this last 2026 session. This year's session was a challenge in many ways, but we ended in a good spot. The investments made this year are not just line items in a budget. They're real, tangible improvements that affect the safety, mobility, and economic vitality of the communities across our state.
Before I get into the session, I want to touch a little bit on the arrival and effects of Winter Storm Fern. Events like Fern test any transportation system, especially in a state that's not used to receiving winter weather on a regular basis. MDOT had around 878 maintenance employees who worked this event. More than half of them were personally without power or water in their own homes, but they showed up to work anyway. There were nearly 30,000 man-hours worked in just those short few days, an estimated cost of about $1.25 million in overtime. We put out 206,000 gallons of brine, applied primarily in the pretreatment of our system. Over 5,300 tons of salt, and frankly, it just wasn't enough. This was a storm of the likes that we've not seen in over 30 years.
You had over 15,000 miles of highways and bridges that were covered in this flash freezing weather event. I observed that Mississippi prepares for hurricanes a lot differently ever since Katrina, and no doubt we'll prepare for ice storms much differently after Fern. We were grateful that we had many North Mississippi legislators that came over to our office and sat down with us for an after action review. We heard clearly what worked, and just as importantly, where we fell short. And that's the kind of honest feedback that I believe is invaluable. And so we're going to be acting on that.
Going forward, MDOT will have contracts in place year-round with private contractors so that we can immediately scale up during emergencies like this without any delay. We're going to prioritize interstate routes with these contractors, freeing up our own crews to focus on four-lane and two-lane highways throughout the areas. We're changing how we manage these events and trying to look at it not from a district by district approach, but we will respond more holistically with leadership deployed directly from Jackson to assist with on the ground coordination and oversight. And we're investing in better tools. Equipment like hot salt spreaders and additional trucks that can be converted into more effective snowplows. These are common in northern states, and it's clear we need to modernize our approach where we can do so in a cost-effective manner. And finally, we continue working to address one of our biggest challenges, and that is staffing.
Through coordination with the State Personnel Board, who does a phenomenal job, we're advancing compensation plans aimed at strengthening and growing our frontline workforce. Because at the end of the day, equipment matters, but in these situations, the people matter more. Regarding this year's session, the legislature once again stepped up to help make sure that the core function of government, that is transportation, was properly tended to. I've been involved in government for a long time, and I say with confidence, this has been the most pro-transportation legislature in over three decades. We're grateful for the passage of House Bill 325, which repealed the sunset on lottery funding dedicated to transportation. That decision provides us with stability that reaffirms a long-term investment from the legislature into infrastructure at about $80 million a year.
Some of you may know that the Mississippi Transportation Commission, at the beginning of receiving the lottery funds, dedicated 100% of those funds to two-lane highways around the state. And I'm proud to report that after receiving this funding since 2018, MDOT has paved more than 3,100 miles of two-lane roads across the state. The broader appropriation and authority we received this session will too strengthen our ability to maintain and build out our highways, bridges, and our multimodal network. Our fiscal year 2027 budget provides MDOT with the full authority to spend $1.6 billion in programmatic special funds without earmarks. That flexibility is critical as it allows us to maximize the use of both state and federal dollars by making sure no federal money is left on the table.
When I came back to MDOT as director nearly five years ago, it became clear to me from the onset that not many under the capital dome understood how MDOT's budget worked. We run basically a reimbursement program. Every five years, Congress authorizes the Federal Highway Administration to conduct business over that five-year period of time with all the partners that they have in the various 50 states and territories throughout our land. So we know at the beginning of that five-year period how much federal dollars will be allocated to us over that five years if we invest and spend the state dollars appropriately.
So what we do is we receive the state funds that are collected from the fuel tax and other smaller streams of revenue. We put 100% of that at use in implementing our projects and programs throughout the state. As Federal Highway Administration is able to ascertain that we're spending the money correctly, we're building things to their standards, that everything's going the way it's supposed to be, then they reimburse us at an 80/90/10 split. So it's very important that the legislature not just give us the authority to spend this money, but how they give us the money is important as well. And when they used to earmark up the special funds of the Department of Transportation, that inhibited our ability to make sure that we were putting those state funds where they could best be used to draw down the federal money.
And I'm happy to say that since we were able to convince the legislature to stop the practice of earmarking the special funds, we've been able to draw down 100% of what federal money Congress would make available, as well as go after other federal funds that other states were not going to be able to use due to problems in their own programs. So I believe we've benefited from that.
Over the last five years, the legislature has supplemented our capacity construction program, which is the large construction program that we run, bypasses, turning four lanes into six lanes, et cetera. They have funded that with over a billion dollars in one-time money, 150 million of which was coming this session alone. That, along with other monies, brings our total budget for fiscal year '27 to roughly around $2 billion, which would be one of the largest budgets we've had.
This is a significant investment in the future of the state. We're committed to trying to deliver results. It became important to us from the beginning that we be able to spend that money in a way that the legislature could have confidence that the money that we were receiving was going to where their constituents was expected to go. I'm a big believer in the best way to get what you want is to deserve what you want. And so we work very hard to make sure the maximum amount of the money that we receive goes directly to some project in some manner around the state.
And this map that I have here beside me indicates the projects we have programmed now over the next three years. This is about $4 billion worth of projects that cover the state pretty well. What's not on this map is the 406 to 410 projects that we have currently ongoing around the state. Over 115 bridge projects, 12 capacity projects, 47 operational projects, 170 different pavement projects, and 62 safety projects. And this all totals somewhere in the neighborhood of about $5 billion of work that we have ongoing right now around the state.
So you can see that we're doing the best we can to take the resources and tools that we're given and make sure that they hit literally where the rubber meets the road. But in addition to the supplemental capacity funding that we receive, the legislature has once again contributed $10 million into our strategic multimodal investment fund. This is a new fund that the legislature created, thanks to the hard work of a lot of people who represent some of the non-highway modes around the state to try to find a dedicated stream of revenue that could be used on a merit-based manner, where the projects around the state are graded and measured for their success and measured on how they could best leverage other federal money for the non-highway modes. And this legislature created this fund, and we're happy that they saw fit to put another $10 million in that fund, which will help us draw down additional federal money for the ports and waterways and airports and rail lines around the state.
Let me close with this before and I'll take any other questions I have. At MDOT, we take seriously the responsibility that comes with the resources entrusted to us. We know that every dollar represents the hard work of Mississippi taxpayers, and our commitment is simple: to manage those resources responsibly, to operate transparently, and then obviously to continuously improve. We also place great emphasis on the safety of our team. And this week is a rather solemn week for MDOT as we recognize Work Zone Awareness Week.
Behind every orange vest and every hard hat that you may pass on the road is a real person. It's a spouse, a parent, a father, a friend, neighbor, someone who takes pride in their work, most of them, not for recognition, but because they know that what they do matters. They know that every new project plays a role in keeping others safe. And yet the work that they do comes at a real risk. Our crews operate just a few feet away from fast-moving traffic. They work in extreme heat and storms and at all hours of the day and night, and they put themselves in harm's way so the rest of us can travel safely. So to the traveling public, I would just say that we need your help. Slow down, stay alert, stay off of your phone. Move over when you see flashing lights. And these simple actions save lives. Work zones are not inconveniences.
They are truly all workplaces, and every worker deserves to return home safely at the end of their shift. So with that, I'll shut up and be happy to attempt to answer any reasonable questions that you may have.
Question and Answer Session
Question from the press: You spoke before, and you spoke of all the money that we were not taking advantage of. And now you are singing a different tune, a much more positive tune. On a scale of one to 10, where were we and where are we now?
Well, I think what your reference is we were talking about the shortfall. When you get back to the federal program, what the Federal Highway Administration grades us on is the manner in which you maintain the current investment that the taxpayers have.
And so when funding would get tight, the only program that the department had the ability to more or less put a moratorium over would be the capacity construction program. Which is the program designed to build out the efficiency of the system by making sure that we're accommodating the volume of traffic and the amount of traffic on that road. In fact, they prefer you try to build out 20 years in advance. So for several years, we were running at a budget shortfall, you might say, in trying to be able to adequately meet the metrics that the Federal Highway Administration would put out without putting that federal money in jeopardy. We proposed to the legislature a lot of ideas in how we felt like that stream of money could be made up without having to raise taxes. We felt like there was room within the budget to do that. When the policy to eliminate the income tax became front and center, luckily, the leadership still recognized that they needed to try to take care of this core function of government.
And since that time, there is revenue now through the additional fuel tax that was levied, along with some of the other revenue they've got, the lottery having a repealer removed from it. That now our budget has grown significantly in a way that can be dedicated strictly to funds. And one of the key things that I'll mention to you about that is we made sure, because like I said, I felt like the best way for us to receive the revenue that we needed was for the legislative members to have confidence that the money was going to the project that they wanted to see built. And so, for example, the capacity construction program we had, we created a fund at the Department of Finance and Administration that's under the purview of the governor, not the Transportation Commission.
And so when they give money to capacity projects, they put it in that account, and we're only able to draw that money out when we have a project program scheduled and ready to be awarded. And likewise, when the law was written that dealt with fuel tax increase and other things, we felt like it was important that it be written in a way that money, regardless of who the commissioners are and regardless of who the director is, would be required to go directly in some way of putting projects on the streets. And so we've been able to see that. But that may be a long way around the barn in saying that we did five years ago experience this budget shortfall. The reason we have the traffic problems in Desoto County or I-20 in Warren County or here in the metro area is because the program that MDOT implements that's designed to build out our system in a way to prevent that from happening, has been set on the shelf for about 12 or 15 years. But thanks to additional federal funds and thanks to investment from our state leaders, we've been able to revitalize that program, and I feel like we're back doing the things that the Department of Transportation is supposed to do.
So are we utilizing all the available funds? Have we arrived? Yes. The fuel tax has not been fully implemented all the way. But yesterday or at the beginning of the session, our appropriation bill primarily has given us the authority to spend the money that's expected to be collected, and they've given us full authority to put all of that money to work.
Question from the press: Mine's a real short question. The repealer on the diversion from the lottery is, I should know this, but is it repealed or is it extended down the road?
It's gone. It's gone. They didn't extend it, Governor. Okay. Unless they go back and deal with that, the first $80 million from the lottery will be a continual part of MDOT's budget in the future. Yes.
Question from the press: You mentioned this week is National Highway Construction Safety Week or something. There were about two dozen radar bills that died in this session. Would they have helped reduce the number of accidents, deaths on Mississippi highways if they had passed? They would basically have allowed smaller locations to run radar. Do you have an opinion on that?
Logically speaking, a law is only as good as how it's enforced, I guess. But if there were manners in which safer driving would be required or mandated or controlled, however you want to put it, then yeah, I think it would stand to reason that the people out there working on the side of the road would be safer. But a lot of it is just when you're driving through those areas, when you see something day in and day out, it becomes part of the scenery. People quit paying attention to what they're doing, and they're on their phone or they're doing different things. So primarily, I would say there's a level of individual responsibility that really should come into play there.
Question from the press: You talked a little bit about winter storm in your initial remarks. I was just curious. We don't know if the next winter storm of that magnitude may come next year or 30 years down the road. But what advice would you give maybe to the next MDOT director that has to deal with a storm of that magnitude?
Well, like we said, that was a storm that we hadn't seen here in about 30 years. Right. You had this flash freezing that covered the whole top part of the state. We had meteorologists that was coming to meet with us a week out. And right up until the day that the storm came through, they were predicting that that storm could hit as far south as right above Hattiesburg, coming from Natchez to the south of Jackson. And so one of the things that that did for us is that we kept all of our maintenance forces in place where they were. Had we been able to predict or know that it would've only hit north of Highway 82, crews that we got out two or three days later, we would've relocated in advance. But because of the information that we and MEMA were receiving about where that potential storm could hit and the severity with which it would hit, we left everybody in place where they were. So that's one thing. But hindsight is 2020. The types of things that we're looking at are more like we've got snow plows in Mississippi now. They are attached to the front of a dump truck. Dump trucks you can use year-round, so if it makes sense, that's the way in which we're going to try to use those equipment. You can get a better dump truck that's a little tougher, that'll put the blade down stronger, be more effective in moving ice and stuff of that nature, and still have use of the dump truck year-round. Those are the types of investments in equipment that I think make sense for us to look at. Something that we know we would get use of year-round, but still maybe put us in a position to be more effective whenever something like that was to happen again. But the other thing that I would mention is just the lack of our maintenance employees. Normally, it would stand to reason that building out an agency with state employees doesn't make a lot of sense. But this is the forces that are out taking care of routine maintenance. When calamities hit, they're the first that are out in the middle of all of that.
When I worked at MDOT in the late '90s, you had maintenance crews in each of the 82 counties that were maintaining what was going on in those counties. And then also, in event of a hurricane or a tornado, ice or whatever, that we're on top of what was happening there. When I came back to MDOT 20-plus years later, the maintenance forces had just fallen by such a great number that the same size crew that used to cover Simpson County might be covering four or five counties. Well, that obviously makes our ability to respond to needs take a little bit more time. And when you look at this winter storm, the floating crews that normally monitor and try to keep the interstates open, in our Batesville district, we had 21 open spots in that crew that need to be filled. So trying to pay a wage fair enough to maintain the types of maintenance crews that can get out and work and be relied upon, I think is important. And we're, like I said, working with personnel going to continue making those moves to do that. The only other thing I think about is I would have had somebody from Jackson on the ground quicker rather than relying just on information that was coming in that manner. I think our chief engineer, someone that would have had decision-making abilities could have been placed out on the ground. And I'm sure there'll be other things.
Question from the press: The Reunion Parkway. We got a nice bridge in Madison County across I-55 but no way to access the interstate. What's the update on that, and where is that going to go?
Well, hopefully, we'll be able to advertise that project in the next few months. The reason that the county was not able to have the approaches to that would-be interchange is because Federal Highway Administration would not allow that to happen without the widening of the interstate. If you're going to dump that much traffic out of that location of the interstate, it's going to have to be widened an extra lane in both directions from Madison up to Gluckstadt. Those projects take a lot of money to build.
And so having the money to widen the interstate was going to be necessary before you could ever build the approaches. The legislative session that we just completed, the legislature put about 150 million into the capacity account. We have that project along with one on Highway 25 in Rankin County, a widening project there we have coming up in another nine to 10 months. A I55 widening in DeSoto County, $150 million get you maybe halfway on those projects we're trying to build. But going back to what you and I were talking about earlier, about the resources that we don't have, we're actively working with the Federal Highway Administration to look at ways that the remaining funds can be put in place to be sure that we keep those projects on track. Because the last thing we want is for them to be ready to build and then just sit on a shelf with the cost of construction and things continue to rise. So hopefully in the next month or two, we'll be at a place where we can have some announcements about those. We're working very hard to try to make sure that we can bring those to fruition. But it may be right before this new fiscal year before we know for sure.
Question from the press: When do you think people will be able to actually get on that interchange? Any idea? Five years?
I would guess that a project like that takes two or three years. Two years, something like that. Don't hold me to that. Hell, I'm no engineer. But I'm just guessing based on the other ones, that that might be something you could expect. Anything else? You talked about the gas tax, and I think we're about to come up on the second year of that being implemented. And I believe those funds are indexed. But is there still a problem with the funding model because of electric vehicles and gas mileage getting better in cars? Does that still pose a long-term risk to how infrastructure is funded? Yeah, I'm of the opinion that we need to modernize our approach of how we fund the transportation system. Primarily, we've always had all of our eggs in the basket of fuel tax.
And I don't think that that's the way to do it in the 21st century. I think there are some fairer ways that it can be done and some ways to do it from a more diversified manner. But it's not my job to come up with that. It's my job to try to spend the money as best we can. So I leave that to policymakers. But for right now, I think we're going to continue to see progress and continue to see the number of projects that we're able to invest in and try to get to the road increase.
Question from the press: Is there a place in Mississippi where a toll road would be feasible?
Years ago, I think I'm right, the last time that the toll road was really looked at was what's been called the Airport Connector or High Street extension or whatever. And I think that the legislature gave the department the authority to build toll roads. I think that was a project that was in people's minds. I think Jackson Pearl and Globe had even purchased some right of way and stuff for that. And then around '08 or something, when the economy recession hit or whatever, the data that would indicate that it would be worth a company's time in coming in and making that type of investment just no longer showed that to be the case. I know that there are still other companies that are actively looking at something like that, but I've not been presented with anything that makes me think it's viable enough to expect to happen.
Question from the press: I have a buddy who's in the crack sealing business. And he says we could double the longevity of our roads if we had an aggressive crack sealing maintenance program. That's when you go and you seal the cracks. And since then, whenever I go to Texas, I see crack sealing everywhere. But in Mississippi, I hardly ever see it. What's your opinion about crack sealing?
We have part of our pavement preservation that we do that covers a lot of that. I forget what the technical term is for it. But we have various methods that the professionals use for that. And a lot of our situation in Mississippi is where we've been trying to play catch up. A lot of times we just have been doing the mill and overlay where we just try to redo the roadway. We are getting to a point where I think that there's an opportunity to look at other methods that might lengthen the lifespan of the road. But we want to make sure we've got our roads to a quality standard before doing that.
ChatGPT AI assisted in the production of this article.
