Marvin Mandel, Governor                        1209

(b) The authority herein granted shall be deemed to be con-
tinuing from year to year but limited in the following manner:

(1)    Any such county, not later than April 1 of each year, may
notify the [Commission] Department of its desire to participate
in the proceeds of a series of bonds to be issued under this subtitle
in the next succeeding fiscal year and the amount of such partici-
pation proposed.

(2)    Upon receipt of such notification, the [Commission] De-
partment shall determine the total proceeds of the highway user
revenues (as defined in Section 38A of this article) pursuant to
the provisions of Section 33 or Section 34 of this article, as the
case may be, exclusive of any amounts so distributed to any munic-
ipalities in said county.

(3)    The [Commission] Department shall next determine the
total amount of bonds issuable under this section by said county
which could be issued in the discretion of the [Commission]
Department, with adequate annual debt service coverage, from the
annual amount of the highway user revenues so allocated to said
county after providing the annual debt service cost of any out-
standing bonds heretofore issued by the commission for such county
to which its share of the said highway user revenues has been
pledged provided, however, the [Commission] Department shall not
issue bonds for any such county where its latest fiscal year share
of highway user revenues is less than twice its annual debt service
requirement for county highway construction bonds (debt service
requirement shall be deemed to mean the annual principal and in-
terest requirements to retire such bonds).

(4)    Subject to annual recomputation, the maximum amount of
the bonds authorized by this section which the [Commission] De-
partment may issue on behalf of each said county, as above com-
puted, shall be the limit of participation for such county under the
provisions of this section.

(5)    With respect to any such series of bonds authorized under
this section, the [Commission] Department may, in its discretion,

limit the participation of any such county in said series. The
[Commission] Department shall take into consideration, in de-
termining the amount of participation of each county the highway
maintenance needs of such county and such other factors as it
deems appropriate.

(6)    Upon making said computation the [Commission] Depart-
ment shall notify each such county so desiring to participate, as
aforesaid, of the amount of bonds which the [Commission] Depart-
ment will issue in said fiscal year on behalf of said county, as
above determined, and said [Commission] Department shall then
issue and sell such amount of its bonds under this section as a part
of the next series of such bonds, and shall pay the net proceeds of
such bonds to each such county after deducting from each a pro-
portionate share of the cost of the issuance of said bonds and any
bonds issued under the provisions of this section shall become
the obligations of the [State Roads Commission] Department and
shall not be considered a debt of any county for the purpose of
determining the debt limitations, and further provided that, prior