Utah is 2nd fastest in spending stimulus funds

WEST JORDAN — The Utah Department of Transportation, local governments and transportation planning organizations have spent 80.7 percent of stimulus funds provided by the federal government, making the Beehive State the second fastest in the nation to spend the funds.

Spending the funds is a good thing, said Jim McMinimee, UDOT's project development director, because the government dispersed the funds to states in hopes that spending would get people back to work. In all, Utah transportation agencies have received $213.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration that McMinimee presented to the Utah Transportation Commission on Tuesday.

Wyoming has spent the money the fastest, spending 96.4 percent of the $157.6 million it received in transportation funds from Washington, D.C., according to the data, and Oklahoma is No. 3, spending 80.6 percent of its $464.6 million.

"The 80 percent we've been talking about is money-wise," McMinimee said. "Project-wise, (Utah transportation agencies) are 60-62 percent" based on the number of projects in which contracts have been bid or construction is under way.

In the next two weeks, UDOT will advertise to bid about 15 projects, leaving another 15 projects remaining. Construction on most of the projects will be completed by the end of the year.

And the first road project is finished: pavement rehabilitation in the Knudsen's Corner area of I-215, from roughly 2000 East to 5400 South. Ogden-based Multiple Concrete Enterprises Inc. began the $769,609 project April 8.

McMinimee said he believes the reason Utah has been fast in spending stimulus money is because most of the projects were relatively small, mostly maintenance and spread throughout the state. Other states are using the stimulus funds on a few huge projects.

"We have 92 projects, and we have almost $200 million," he said. "If you divide that, it's almost $2 million a project. That's pretty small projects."

Also on Tuesday, commissioners added nine projects to the stimulus list. The state can afford it, since bids are coming in at 72 percent of what project managers initially estimated.

"We've got great bids right now because of competition," McMinimee said, adding that projects that last year would only have two or three bids now have eight or nine.

E-MAIL: lhancock@desnews.com