While the Connecticut State Bond Commission approved $1.1 billion in new financing Oct. 6 to rebuild the state’s aging infrastructure, Gov. Ned Lamont and his transportation commissioner pledged the administration was adding staff to ensure more projects can be launched in future years.
“We’re continuing to make a dent in our vacancies and as we get more and more employees, it’s going to be easier to get work out the door,” Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner (CTDOT), told CT Mirror.
He added that the agency now has about 3,100 employees — roughly 200 more than it did back in January.
“Look, we’re squeezed for engineers and such, but Garrett’s got us ahead of the curve,” explained Lamont, who chairs the 10-member bond commission. “I think we’re just getting started.”
The financing unanimously endorsed would back a wide variety of highway, bridge and public transit facility improvements, including upgrades to New Haven Union Station.
Eucalitto said the work, which also includes a large resurfacing project on Interstate 95 between Groton and the Rhode Island state line, would “grow the economy, increase safety and reliability, and improve quality of life.”
To make those changes, though, Connecticut not only must endorse the financing, it also must borrow the actual funds and get construction going. And bond commission approval does not guarantee the state actually will borrow $1.1 billion — let alone spend it on transportation projects — any time soon.
In fact, Connecticut’s track record in this area has plenty of critics.
CT Mirror reported that the state pays for most transportation projects with two sources: Funds it borrows by issuing bonds on Wall Street, which are repaid largely with fuel and sales tax from the Connecticut budget’s Special Transportation Fund; and matching federal grants.
But while there is a normal lag of months or years between bond commission approval and the actual borrowing and expenditure of construction funds, Connecticut has developed a worsening backlog over time.
In October 2010, when the state first began tracking this problem, the state had $2.25 billion in approved transportation financing that only existed on paper — meaning the funds had not been borrowed yet. That backlogged financing represented almost four times the amount of transportation borrowing Connecticut was doing annually at that time, according to records from the state treasurer’s office.
Thirteen years later, the backlog approaches $5.4 billion, which represents more than six times the amount of actual funds the state intends to borrow this year for transportation work.
The Lamont administration announced last November it planned to dramatically boost actual transportation borrowing to $1 billion this fiscal year from $830 million in 2022. Recently, though, it confirmed it had downgraded planned borrowing to $875 million.
Connecticut’s construction industry and trades, along with state employee unions, have all said that CTDOT has for years lacked sufficient engineering, planning and architectural staff to get more projects under way.
Administration officials have countered by pointing out that many states have struggled to secure professional staff since the coronavirus pandemic struck in early 2020.
The stakes are huge, though, since Congress enacted a landmark, five-year transportation construction program in 2021 that is offering states up to $1.2 trillion. Federal matching grants in many cases will cover 80 percent to 90 percent of a project’s cost.
In other business Oct. 13, Connecticut’s State Bond Commission also approved:
- A total of $30 million in financing to support development of a new nursing program facility for the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Those funds will be matched with a $40 million donation from Elisabeth DeLuca, owner of the Subway restaurant chain. UConn officials say it represents the largest gift in the school’s history.
- About $105 million for affordable housing initiatives, first-time home-buyer assistance, and support for eastern Connecticut homeowners with crumbling foundation issues.
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