BEAUFORT -- Beaufort and Colleton counties and the Lowcountry Council of Governments will be asked to contribute $26 million over the next 20 years to help pay for the widening of U.S 17 from Gardens Corner to Jacksonboro.

The state Department of Transportation has pursued the widening of the narrow 22-mile stretch of highway for more than a year, but recent fatalities spurred the state to fast-track permitting and designs to get the project under way as early as February. Thirty-three people have died on the highway since 1997.

The Beaufort County Transportation Advisory Group, a multi-jurisdictional group that comments on regional transportation issues, will hear a presentation from the Transportation Department on Tuesday regarding the funding plan.

Beaufort County last year committed $2 million to the project through developer fees. But the estimated $150 million cost for the project probably will require a more substantial buy-in from local governments, Keith Bishop, finance director for the Transportation Department, said Thursday.

The funding plan includes an application from the two counties for a $90 million grant from the State Infrastructure Bank, along with $48 million in bonds through the bank that would have to be reimbursed.

As a local contribution, the two counties and the regional agency would be expected to contribute a total of $1.3 million a year toward the bond, with the Transportation Department contributing $3 million a year. All contributions are contingent on approval from the local groups, Bishop said, and it has not been determined how they would be broken up among the entities.

State Infrastructure Bank applications typically include a local match of about 35 to 40 percent, he said. The $105 million widening of S.C. 170 was paid for primarily through the infrastructure bank and included a $30 million investment from Beaufort County raised through a 1 percent capital project sales tax approved by voters.

Beaufort County has a history of acknowledging that full funding for road projects doesn't come from Columbia, County Council Chairman Weston Newton said Thursday, but the county doesn't have the money to invest in the project.

"Absent an alternative revenue source," he said, "it's a commitment to increase property taxes."

The county has presented two unsuccessful capital-project sales-tax referendums to voters since 2002, and both included money for U.S. 17 improvements. Newton said another referendum is expected in November 2006.

The Transportation Department is open to in-kind contributions, Bishop said, including donations of locally owned right of way or commitments for future maintenance of the highway.

"I don't think we've taken anything off the table," he said.

Other funding in place for the project includes:

$10 million through a congressional earmark in the six-year federal highway bill signed by the president this month.

$13.3 million for a new Combahee River Bridge through federal bridge-replacement funds.

$700,000 for intersection improvements at S.C. 64 through state intersection improvement funds.

The Transportation Department previously suggested the cost for the widening could reach $200 million, but Bishop said he was comfortable working with a $150 million budget.