Roads department to have larger budget than expected

 6 comment(s)  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

By the Lincoln Journal Star

The Nebraska Department of Roads will have more money for road construction than it anticipated — about $317 million rather than the earlier predicted $270 million.

With $270 million, department officials had said it would only be able to work on maintaining the roads and continuing widening the interstate to six lanes between Omaha and Lincoln.

The larger budget will mean the state will be able to do some road projects beyond those two top priorities, said John Craig, agency director.

Three factors contribute to the higher-than-predicted construction funding, Craig said.

The state Legislature raised state funding by about $30 million, the state agency found “efficiencies” and there was a slight increase in federal funding.

The roads department construction program could ultimately be even higher, as much as $380 million, if federal funds don’t drop as expected, according to a letter on the issue to state senators.

The state construction budget for fiscal year 2009, which just began, is still lower than funding in recent years. The construction program was $390 million in fiscal year 2006, $350 million in fiscal year 2007 and $341 million in fiscal year 2008, according to the letter.