Castle Rock Construction Co. is doing CDOT's $12.5 millon concrete reconstruction of nearly nine miles of U.S. 40/287 near Boyero, part of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor. It is funded with stimulus money. CDOT photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

If Sen. Jim Bunning had not balked at the end of his far-from-perfect game on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the team of contractors out in the field on numerous federal-aid highway projects stood to lose an average of $1.76 million in reimbursement per workday.

In the current Colorado budget year that began July 1, 2009, the Federal Highway Administration has sent nearly $303.7 million to CDOT to cover the federal share of state highway projects. That’s nearly $38 million a month, or $1.76 million for each workday.

That’s a lot of dirt-moving, concrete, asphalt and steel.

CDOT spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said the transportation department could have handled a week or so of stalled federal reimbursements, but if Bunning’s stall tactic had gone on longer, Colorado would have been forced to look at suspending work on projects, as several states had already done.

Bunning – a Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher with a perfect game in his record with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964, agreed to end his holdout late Tuesday. It came in exchange for a vote on his proposed amendment that the $10 billion total cost of the various extensions in the bill be paid without increasing the deficit – the same proposal he rejected last week. It lost on a procedural point, and the bill itself then was passed 78-19.

Colorado was somewhat prepared to weather the delay thanks to the influx of new highway revenue from last year’s FASTER increase in vehicle registration fees. Dedicated to repair and replacement of poor-rated bridges and highways, the money is programmed this year to pay for projects just now going out for bids.

“Most the projects we’re advertising right now are state-funded FASTER, so they aren’t impacted,” Stegman said.

SEMA Construction Inc. is working on CDOT's stimulus-funded $11 million replacement of I-76 bridges over the Union Pacific Railroad in Adams County. CDOT photo.

“The biggest issue is that we can’t bid new projects with federal funds as we can’t obligate the dollars” without assurance of being repaid, Stegman said. The federal aid is important to CDOT’s cash flow and to keep contractors paid – and the road workers employed.

Federal highway aid is paid as reimbursement for up-front state outlays on eligible project costs. CDOT pays its contractors and submits the expense to the U.S. Department of Transportation for reimbursement. Not all projects are federally aided, and not all portions of a federally aided project are eligible for reimbursement.

CDOT had not begun to discuss contingency planning because the agency was confident that the Senate would resolve the situation quickly. More controversial than holding up the extension of transportation funding authorization was that Bunning’s tactic – being the sole senator objecting to unanimous consent to move the bill forward – had allowed unemployment and medical benefits extensions for the nation’s unemployed to expire.

“It isn’t the first time it has happened,” Stegman said of the lapse in highway payments. If it had continued into next week, CDOT planned to have serious discussions on specific projects to suspend and other moves.