Trust Fund Uncertainty Prompts Arkansas to Curb 2015 Highway, Bridge Project Bidding

AASHTO Journal, 9 January 2015

Scott Bennett, director of the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department, said he has cut three 2015 highway projects worth $30 million from a Jan. 27 bid opening as he waits to see how and when Congress might replenish the Highway Trust Fund.

Bennett, in a Dec. 23 press release announcing the action, said he took those projects off his bid list because of “the uncertainty of federal-aid reimbursements” out of the HTF, since the state can’t count on timely federal payments as the construction bills roll in during 2015. And Bennett made clear he may need to trim more in coming months with further rounds of project bidding.

scott bennett.jpg  Scott Bennett    Photo: AHTD 

The AHTD director said that during 2014 Arkansas had to delay 15 highway projects worth $70 million, because the state could not count on the feds to come up with their share as the trust fund ran low last spring and summer. Congress finally acted in late July to bolster the fund with enough money to last through May, but that near-term deadline has again left states wondering when they could use the federal share of funds for qualifying road and bridge projects.

“Same song, second verse,” Bennett said of the latest cuts from the project planning list, and perhaps more to come. “The federal government is putting the states in a real bind regarding the implementation of much-needed highway projects.”

The three Arkansas projects being dropped from bidding for now include a major widening of a highway in parts of two counties, paving over a gravel roadway in another and replacing a bridge in a fourth. Bennett said agency officials will again evaluate the payment outlook for federal-aid projects before later 2015 bid rounds starting in March.

In October, Tennessee Transportation Commissioner John Schroer announced delays of $400 million in projects due to federal cost-share uncertainty.

The next month, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx urged other state DOT executives to tell Congress and the public about work they would delay as well, when he addressed the annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Bennett also said the USDOT is now warning the trust fund will run low by July unless Congress bolsters it sooner. “We are constantly monitoring our projections and cash flow of state funds,” he said. “If our federal reimbursements are reduced or delayed, we must account for that on the front end to ensure we have adequate state funds to fulfill all our commitments.”

The Arkansas agency chief sounded a call for Congress to act in a way that ends these repeated annual disruptions in project planning. “We are hoping that a long-term revenue solution for the federal Highway Trust Fund can be found, so we in Arkansas and across the country can continue to award planned construction projects and adequately invest in our nation’s infrastructure,” he said.

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