West Virginia's Legislature hopes to get a few new ideas this week as it revisits a problem that has vexed the Mountain State for much of this decade: funding for its sprawling road system.

Professor Tom Witt is scheduled to update lawmakers during interims on his ongoing study of the State Road Fund.

"Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions," Witt told The Associated Press last week. "I'm going to be laying out options, and some I imagine will be dead on arrival."

Witt is an associate dean at West Virginia University, and heads its Bureau of Business and Economic Research. He says the traditional ways to pay for road building and repairs no longer keep pace with needs. Rising costs of such basic materials as concrete and asphalt are, meanwhile, blunting the buying power of available revenues.

"It's a challenge every state is facing," Witt said. "What we're seeing in West Virginia is just the tip of what you will find overall across the rest of the country."

Like many other states, West Virginia has sought to fuel its road fund by applying the benefits received principal, Witt explained. Individuals who pay the taxes into the system reap the benefits from having a modern highway network, he said.

But revenues from the fund's user-based sources __ taxes on gas, vehicle sales and registrations _ have flattened in recent years and are projected to remain so. The recession, higher gas prices and even improved car fuel efficiency have also contributed to the problem.

These three taxes supply 99.7 percent of the state's share of the road fund, which also benefits from federal highway dollars. But the state portion, expected to yield $631.6 million during the budget year that ends June 30, ended November $14.6 million below estimate.

"They have been flat over the last several years. We're continuing to work with the same amount of money we've always had in the face of increasing costs," said Brent Walker, a Division of Highways spokesman. "At times, it seems impossible to keep with inflation, keep up with costs. What happens? We delay maintenance, we delay projects."

The legion of motorists who traveled West Virginia's roads over the recent holiday experienced the results. State officials consider the stretches of interstate and other federally aided roads to be in good shape.

"The stimulus, that was certainly a shot, but it was a one-time shot," Walker noted.