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The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced today it will need to cut $16 million from its budget next year and will be reviewing cut packages with its citizen advisory committee in the coming months.

鈥淭he main reason we’re in funding difficulties is that transportation is linked to an unstable, unsustainable funding source in the gas tax,鈥� said PBOT spokesman Dan Anderson. 鈥淧rojections for gas tax have consistently been over than what we’ve received so we’re anticipating lower (revenues next year).鈥�

Over the past 10 years, PBOT has made $16 million in permanent cuts to its discretionary budget, which currently stands at $100 million per year. For the fiscal year starting next July, the bureau will have to make that amount of permanent cuts for just one year’s budget. Last year, the bureau made $7 million in one-time cuts.

The bureau’s discretionary budget funds maintenance and operations and is separate from grants from other agencies for specific projects.

For example, the $100 million federal grant that is paying for the East Side Streetcar聽 loop 鈥渃an’t be used to fill potholes downtown,鈥� Anderson said.

According to a release from the bureau this afternoon, a six-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase in 2009 has not kept pace with the bureau’s need for funding projects, which have recently included emergency landslide repairs on Southwest Sam Jackson Park Road and Broadway Drive, sidewalk construction in East and Southwest Portland and reconstruction of the Sellwood Bridge.

Anderson said the bureau is hoping for input from the public when selecting what it will cut in its budget process.