The city of Colorado Springs on Wednesday decided not to pitch a plan to hire its own employees to do work on Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority road projects now being done by consultants and temporary workers, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports.

City staffers asked the Rural Transportation Authority board to withdraw the proposal from its Wednesday meeting agenda. The city could ask the proposal be put back on the RTA board’s agenda next month.

Currently, a RTA policy prevents member governments of the authority from using money raised by a one-cent sales tax to hire regular employees to work on RTA-funded road projects.

The city said it can save $1.7 million a year to fund more capital and road maintenance work if it could either pay existing employees or hire “at will” employees to work on RTA projects. The city estimates it spends twice as much to hire consultants and up to 30 percent more to hire temporary workers than it would cost to do the work in-house.

Read the entire article at the Colorado Springs Gazette.