The North Carolina Legislature returned to business Tuesday to adjust the state’s two-year budget and was greeted by a second request for funding in as many days, this time to consider a bond of at least $1 billion for roads and public transit projects.

A major debt referendum on transportation may have a better chance in an election year than Monday’s proposal from Democratic Gov. Mike Easley to raise cigarette and alcohol taxes for teacher raises and mental health care.

“What you’ll see is us trying to address all the needs, but not everybody will get everything we want,” said House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange. But he added: “We need to have some progress on transportation this session.”

The 21st Century Transportation Committee’s recommendations, released just before the House and Senate gaveled in, would build urban loops, reduce congestion, repair bridges and widen intrastate roads.

The state Transportation Department has said the difference between transportation revenues and needs over the next two decades is estimated at $65 billion.

“It is a very, very small step toward the challenges that we face,” said Brad Wilson, chairman of the special transportation committee comprising elected officials, transportation experts and business executives.

The panel said the Legislature also should end a $172 million annual transfer from the Highway Trust Fund to the state’s general operating fund and use much of it to repay the bonds. The rest, up to $45 million next year, would help start the first toll roads in recent state history.

No exact bond level was recommended by the committee.

“The Legislature is going to have to weigh out what is appropriate,” said Stephen Zelnak Jr., chief executive of Martin Marietta Materials, which makes road-building materials. Any bond package of less than $1 billion wouldn’t be worth taking to voters, he said.

The panel also didn’t say how it would close the hole in the state budget created by ending the transfer.

Easley’s $21.5 billion budget proposal, released Monday, would phase out the transfer over time, beginning with $25 million this year.

One powerful senator agrees with that idea.

“I think we’ll begin to do something about the transfer but I don’t think we have the resources to do it completely one full-fell swoop,” said Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland. “I have not found any ground swell to raise taxes.”

The panel also proposed expanding to about 30 the number of metropolitan counties that could approve tax options, with local voter approval, to pay for public transportation needs, from buses to light rail. About a half-dozen counties now use such authority. The money could be used to draw down matching funds from the state generated with some of bonds’ proceeds.

But Wilson said local tax options may have to wait another year, given legislators’ opposition to new taxes.