Secretary of State Matt Blunt has announced that the sponsors of the initiative petition to amend the Missouri Constitution to end the diversion of fuel taxes, vehicle taxes and fees to state agencies not directly involved in the construction or maintenance of state and local highways, have obtained enough valid signatures to have the issue placed on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Local Missouri election officials verified 155,893 signatures, according to a Blunt news release.

The group needed a total of 121,302 signatures to place the question before voters in the November general election. In order to get the question on the ballot, the petition sponsors were required to get signatures equal to or exceeding 8 percent of the number of people voting in the last gubernatorial election in six of Missouri’s nine congressional districts.

The six congressional districts targeted by the sponsors of this petition were 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9.

The question that will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot will ask, “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to require that all revenues from the existing motor vehicle fuel tax (less collection costs) be used only for state and local highways, roads and bridges and also require that vehicle taxes and fees paid by highway users be used only for constructing and maintaining the state highway system (less collection costs, refunds and highway patrol law enforcement costs), except that up to half of such vehicle taxes and fees, phased in over four years, will go into a state road bond fund to repay state highway bonds?

“The constitutional amendment has a zero net fiscal impact. The amendment increases funding for the Department of Transportation to be used for transportation purposes only and limits the use of highway user fee revenues by other state agencies. The indirect fiscal impact on state and local governments, if any, is unknown,” the release stated.