COLUMBIA, S.C. — The state Transportation Department wants $5.5 million in new state money next year, including money to pay for salt sheds, officials told a panel of House members Wednesday.

The $5.5 million requested is less than 1 percent of the $1.5 billion-a-year in added money the department estimates it will need to maintain and expand the state’s crumbling roads and bridges through 2040.

Still, if lawmakers approve the request, it will be 10 times the $500,000 the agency received for buildings last year.

The Transportation Department operates on a $1.6 billion-a-year budget, 57 percent of which is federal money. The department’s budget also includes money from the state’s 16.75 cent-a-gallon gas tax and money from bonding through the state infrastructure bank. Most of that money does not flow through the state’s $7 billion general fund.

The Transportation Department’s budget request is modest, said state Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, who chairs the House subcommittee considering the request.

Limehouse described the state’s roads as dilapidated, adding that new revenues will be needed to fix them. “We need a significant influx of cash into South Carolina’s transportation projects … if we are to come up to standard.”