When Pennsylvanians began paying a higher state gasoline tax and higher fees for vehicle registration, there was some grumbling. But most people accepted the higher costs because they knew the extra $800 million raised would help pay for badly needed bridge and road repairs.

The controversial legislation, Act 89, was passed in late 2013, and supporters noted that Pennsylvania has the fifth largest highway system and in the country and more bridges than all but two other states. Our roads and bridges need more maintenance.

Some drivers might not have been happy paying more for gas and vehicle registration renewals, but it was for a good cause — fixing the state’s crumbling roads and bridges.

This week, we learned that a big chunk of the Act 89 money is not going to highways and bridges — it’s going to the Pennsylvania State Police.

An article by the Associated Press explaining the plundering of Act 89 money revealed that raiding highway funds for the state police it nothing new; it’s been going on for decades.

This is just another example of why people don’t trust government — they say one thing and do another. The extra money motorists have been paying for Act 89 was for roads and bridges, period. That’s how the legislation was sold to the public — to help fix the state’s roads and bridges.

Yet Harrisburg politicians have quietly stripped away hundreds of millions of dollars to help fund the PSP.

According to the AP article, higher motorist fuel taxes and fees from Act 89 now contribute about $750 million to the state police’s $1.2 billion budget.

So not only are our current state lawmakers failing to do their jobs by not passing a state budget, but they are quietly stealing highway funds to pay for state police operations.

Taking highway funds to subsidize the the state police budget is wrong. But it’s also wrong that state police budget is underfunded.

State police funding brings up another troubling Harrisburg issue, one that is sometimes described as a “free rider” problem. In the case of the state police, the free riders are communities that have no local police force and depend on state police for coverage. Very small communities or municipalities simply lack the money for a local police force. In other cases, some municipalities have disbanded their local police to save money, knowing that the state police will be forced to provide coverage.

The end result is a system that places an unfair burden on the state police, or a least increases the burden on state police without a corresponding increase in funding.

It’s a problem that Harrisburg lawmakers have talked about for years, but have failed to address.

There has been talk about requiring municipalities of a certain population to have their own police departments, or pay something for state police coverage. There also has been talk of encouraging smaller communities to create regional police forces instead of relying on the state police.

The uncompensated coverage provided by state police was estimated to cost $540 million in 2012, which was more than half of PSP’s budget that year.

State police funding is clearly a difficult issue. Mandating the creation of more regional or local police departments, or imposing a tax on those without local police coverage will be controversial. But the answer is not to continue to rob the state’s fund for highway and bridge maintenance and repairs.

State Transportation Secretary Leslie Richards was right when he said, “I think people are going to be shocked to find that what they voted for is going to the Pennsylvania State Police.”

There is broad public support for the state police. Lawmakers should be honest, and fair, about how the PSP is funded.

Highway money should never have been diverted from fixing roads and bridges. If that was the plan, supporters of Act 89 should have been honest and said so, explaining that half of the new gas tax money raised would not go to roads and bridges, but instead go to the state police, primarly to pay for “free coverage.”