DOTD considers several Tri-parish area road improvement projects

Several road improvement projects in the Tri-parishes are on a state Department of Transporta-tion and Development list of job requests to be funded with state budget surplus money.

This year is the third in a row that surplus funds will be used to fund highway projects, said Department of Transportation and Development spokesman Mark Lambert. The first year was under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration.

In 2008, the department had $400 million in surplus funds to spend on roadway and transportation infrastructure improvements.

This year, the amount is $246 million.

Lambert said the department has received more than $1 billion in budget surplus money since 2007.

He said the funds are going directly into roadway improvement with nothing being spent on administrative costs or overhead.

“The governor has been consistent about transportation as a priority,” Lambert said. “The Legislature and the governor are more and more comfortable that we’ll put it to good use. We still have a lot of work to do. There are congestion problems, overlays, bridge replacements.”

Much of the surplus money would be used to match federal funding that is around four times the amount of money the state will put up, on average.

But $5.65 million would be spent directly by the state on projects in the Tri-parishes that would not be matched by federal money, including $3.3 million on a dry dock facility at the Port of Terrebonne.

“If you see a project funded totally by the state, that means it’s important enough to spend total state funds on,” Lambert said. “We thought enough of it to fund it totally by the state.”

“You have to make sure you have enough state money for a federal match,” he added.

“If you run out of money, tough luck.”

The department has been jammed with a $14 million backlog of needed roadway and transportation infrastructure improvements. Because of the surplus funding, Lambert said, the department is at the point where the backlog is not growing anymore.

The Legislature passed a vehicle sales tax that would be dedicated to the Department of Transportation and Development if state revenue reached a specified amount.

Lambert said the department would have received $35 million from the tax, but revenue did not attain the required level. The money went into the state’s general fund.

Several projects had to be postponed because of the loss of anticipated funds, he said.

Though the department missed the chance at the funding, a release from the Office of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal stated that surplus dollars next year will be used to make up that loss in the state Highway Priority Program.

The program includes a document submitted to the Legislature defining the projects to be developed by the Department of Transportation and Development.

The following are on the list to receive funding from the surplus. State budget surplus funds can be used only to pay for one-time projects and not for ongoing expenses:

• Lafourche Parish – overlay of the St. Charles Bridge: $2.9 million federal, $714,200 state match;

• St. Mary Parish – joint and seal replacement on U.S. Hwy. 90 bridges: $154,400 federal, $38,600 state match; reconstruction of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard: $150,000 state; engineering and construction on Catherine Street: $2.2 million, state;

• Terrebonne Parish – widening Grand Caillou Road to five lanes from Industrial Boulevard to Thompson Road: $5.6 million federal, $1.4 million state match; $3.3 million in state money for improvements at the Port of Terrebonne.