Anatomy of an Infrastructure Project

Besides death and taxes, there are two other certainties you can count on: we need to fix our crumbling roads and bridges and hiring workers to do those jobs will be good for everybody. Every state is facing these exact same infrastructure challenges. Seems like a common concern with a simple solution. But not so fast. This will involve government forces at all levels. Brace yourselves.

The first phase is clearly stating what the problem is. In Ohio, that fell to Senator Sherrod Brown who put forth an article detailing Ohio’s infrastructure problems. On his website, Senator Brown states that “Targeted investment in infrastructure brings far-reaching benefits to the local economy. It improves commerce, creates jobs, and increases safety for Ohio families. Investing in infrastructure reflects economic foresight. Our short term concerns can and must be married to our long term interests if Ohio is to maintain a vibrant economy and a safe environment for its 11.5 million residents.” Well said. Although, the Senator mentions one funding bill, there really isn’t a lot of detailed talk about how to deal with the big issues. Enter the new President.

Two days after President Obama took the oath of office, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson submitted a list of shovel ready projects that were, well, shovel ready. This was when the stimulus spending plan was just a whisper. You’ve got to give Mayor Jackson credit for trying to get ahead of the curve. Then reality set in.

The stimulus spending bill passed and Ohio stood to collect $1.21 billion dollars worth of infrastructure spending money. Unfortunately, there was $12 billion dollars worth of infrastructure spending needed.

In an article by Karen Farkas of the Plain Dealer, she quotes Glen Sprowls, executive director of the County Engineers Association of Ohio “These are problems we have been addressing for years,” summed up Glen. “You can look at it two ways — there is either not enough money to maintain what we have or too much infrastructure to maintain.”

So, clearly Ohio was going to have a potential problem with spending. Fear not. A watchdog was on the way in the form of Mr. Winston Ford former general counsel for the Ohio Department of Health and now in charge with overseeing how Ohio will be spending all of its stimulus money, not just those funds earmarked for infrastructure.

With a watchdog on the job, nothing could go wrong, right? Wrong. Turns out there was a plan being pushed around to spend some of the infrastructure money on “road studies. Not quite sure what this means but fortunately, somebody put the brakes on the studies and instead that money will now be going back into construction.

To sum up: the problem was identified, a wish list was submitted, there wasn’t enough money to pay for it all, the money that was there needed to be accounted for and somebody tried to waste it.

Luckily, forces aligned themselves and the stars shined down when finally the first 17 road projects got under way in early June. This means 17 work crews are earning paychecks and supporting their families. That’s great news in anybody’s book.

– Meyer