PROVIDENCE –– A special state panel yesterday discussed several ideas to raise money to fix the state’s roads and bridges, from tolls on Route 95 and the Sakonnet River bridge to increases in the gas tax and higher traffic fines.

But none of the suggestions would come close to raising the $300 million a year the state Department of Transportation says it needs to catch up from years of neglect.

On a separate front, Jerome F. Williams, the governor’s director of administration, offered the administration’s first plan for covering the budget deficit that threatens to force major cutbacks in bus service or even a shutdown of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transportation Funding, created by Governor Carcieri, has been meeting since March to look for new revenue sources. The 12-member group, comprising state and local officials, business people and representatives from the Federal Highway Administration and the American Automobile Association, is expected to make its recommendations to the governor early next month.

Williams, co-chairman of the group, told the DOT to prepare two plans, one for raising the $109 million per year his own suggestions would produce, and the other the nearly $300 million per year the DOT says it needs to catch up on years of neglect of the state’s roads and bridges.

Williams’ plan would work in stages, generating $69 million in the 2010 fiscal year, which starts July 1, and $109 million per year starting two years later.

During the first year, the plan would impose a new wholesale tax on fuel for motor vehicles, raising $43 million per year. It would also increase vehicle registration fees by $10 per year,raising $22.9 million, and increase the penalties for traffic violations by 20 percent, raising $1.8 million per year. The difference would come from smaller increases in other fees.

In later years, Williams would add toll boothson Route 95 near the Connecticut border , raising another $40 million. The panel has talked about $2 tolls for in-bound cars in the past. They would be aimed at the “significant amount of traffic” that uses the state’s highways without paying anything unless the drivers stop for fuel.

Williams’ plan avoids a number of politically difficult possibilities which the panel has talked about, such as imposing tolls on the planned new Sakonnet River Bridge and on the Mt. Hope Bridge, and raising the state sales tax.

He also suggested more of something he and other officials say the state has done too much of — borrowing. He said the state could borrow perhaps $150 million immediately, paying the principal and interest from new revenue from the fee and tax increases he suggested.

But the immediate goal is “to try and get through this year,” Williams said.

Another plan, which would raise somewhat more money, $123.5 million, came from panel member William Sequino, East Greenwich’s town manager. Although his approach included some of the same revenue sources as Williams’, there were also some significant differences. His plan would include tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge, and it would increase the state sales tax by one quarter of one percent, dedicating the estimated $30 million gained to RIPTA and to repairing municipal roads.

However, Sequino said, “I didn’t get anywhere near close” to the $250 million to $300 million the DOT wants. Even so, his plan would rely on diverting existing state revenue.

Like a number of other states, Rhode Island’s government has landed itself in a transportation financial crisis in addition to its overall budget deficit. Bridges large and small have weight limits, forcing detours, and roads are deteriorating. Meanwhile, a national recession is setting in, probably reducing some of the tax and fee revenue the panel wants to collect.

In his remarks about RIPTA yesterday, Williams recommended a 5-cent increase in the state gasoline tax “for a short period of time.” He said that would raise $9.3 million, which is about the size of the transit agency’s estimated deficit for this fiscal year.

RIPTA board Chairman John Rupp has said that without some clear indications of help by January, the authority would have to impose cuts that could eliminate up to 20 percent of its service.

That situation has brought repeated criticism of the governor from transit supporters, who say it’s unreasonable to cut service just when RIPTA’s ridership has increased dramatically and economic troubles mean people need more transit, not less.

blandis@projo.com