LITTLE ELM – The North Texas Tollway Authority adopted its final 2010 budget Wednesday, and it included about $450,000 in new funds to pay for eight additional state troopers to patrol its growing network of highways.

The $1.1 billion budget continues the agency's metamorphosis into possibly North Texas' dominant player in transportation. It includes $167 million in debt service to make payments on the approximately $7 billion it has borrowed to build a growing number of toll roads – debt that has meant higher toll rates for drivers now and a steady schedule of increases into the future.

Most of that money was borrowed since 2007, when the NTTA agreed to spend about $5 billion to win the right to build and toll State Highway 121, now called the Sam Rayburn Tollway.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Lisa Block said it is not yet certain whether her agency will provide the new officers, given that negotiations with the NTTA are continuing. If the two parties reach an agreement, however, those eight new officers would join 25 others in patrolling more than 90 miles of NTTA toll roads.

That road network includes the Dallas North Tollway, still the agency's most lucrative road; the Bush Turnpike, where a 10-mile eastward expansion is under way; and the Sam Rayburn Tollway – plus two toll bridges and a tunnel.

In the past year, the NTTA has opened the Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge and has begun collecting tolls on State Highway 161 – a road now under construction that is expected to become part of the NTTA's system pending the outcome of negotiations with the Texas Department of Transportation.

The new budget will include money to continue construction on the Sam Rayburn Tollway, which should be completed – including new interchanges to and from Central Expressway and the Dallas North Tollway – by January 2012.

The 2010 budget also includes money to hire 11 new roadway response officers, bringing the NTTA's total number of roadside emergency responders to 33, plus a manager and two supervisors.

The board adopted the 2010 budget by 8-to-1, with the lone no vote coming from vice chairman Victor Vandergriff of Tarrant County.

Vandergriff said after the meeting that he voted against the budget because of lingering concerns over the NTTA's policy on collecting unpaid tolls. Currently, the NTTA charges $25 for every toll that remains unpaid after 75 days – a policy that has meant bills sent to collections totaling hundreds, and often thousands, of dollars.

He wants that policy examined and said Wednesday he's not satisfied with the answers provided by the staff so far.

The toll collections policy will be discussed at committee meetings in January, he said.