From kindergarten on up, most of us understand a basic rule of life: If you break it, fix it.

Most of us, but not the Georgia Department of Transportation.

GDOT this week informed Troup County that they won’t be fixing the roads torn up due to heavy construction hauling for the Kia Motors plant and Kia interchange on I-85. About 17 miles of county roads need about $1 million in repairs. It’s typical for the state to pick up repair expenses around large construction projects when roads have to be damaged to get the job don.

Basically, interim DOT commissioner gave county engineer James Emery a “let them eat cake” reponse. Just put the roads on next year’s Local Assistance Road Program list, he suggested, knowing full well that the county won’t get enough LARP money to do the job -and that LARP funds are intended for other needs.

DOT officials, at a widely attended public hearing on the Kia interchange project, verbally agreed that it would be their responsibility to fix roads that got “broken” during the construction. They acknowledged the “commitment” in a response to a letter of understanding submitted by Troup County manager Mike Dobbs following the hearing.

Now, they shrug and say no. Any wonder folks have a hard time trusting their government?

Nobody disputes that the funding crunch that has hit all of state government has been especially painful at DOT. The word “shortfall” has become ubiquitous in transportation discussions.

But some projects are proceeding - just this week the newspaper received a notice that the state is ready to repave Highway 219 fromthe Harris County line to South Chilton Crescent - it will take until October. The current resurfacing of Broad Street (State Connector 14) is also a state project.

It’s easy to say “Oh, that’s apples and oranges; money from another pot” or whatever. Maybe so, but the fact is DOT could and should find a way to fix the Kia road damage, but chooses to do other things.

So much for setting priorities. So much for keeping promises.

Leadership changes are coming to DOT, where there’s been turmoil on top of turmoil in recent years. A convoluted revamp of transportation governance, in fact, is pending.

Perhaps the first change that ought to occur is this: The state ought to fix what it breaks. Trucks pay hefty road taxes for a reason. Local governments shouldn’t be left holding the bag - and huge bills - for damage incurred by heavy hauling at state-funded projects.

Broken roads, broken promises.

Fixing one would fix the other.