Modern Inspector

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...". The famous opening line from Dickens' Tale of Two Cities might be quite applicable today to those in the infrastructure business. The traditional mechanism to fund many transportation capital improvements -- the gas tax -- via the highway transportation trust fund has produced flat to declining revenue over the past few years. This coupled with dramatically higher costs of materials and natural labor cost increases has led to a steep drop in the buying power of the funds. On the operational budget side state and local governments have increasingly imposed hiring freezes, travel bans, and other deep budget cuts to try and balance expenses with flat or reduced tax revenue.

The current six year highway transportation funding bill SAFETEA-LU expires in September 2009 (although it may run short of funds before then) and Congress is in the process of exploring options for renewing this important legislation that forms the cornerstone of highway funding. Major industry groups: AASHTO, ARTBA, and others have been aggressively lobbying for substantial funding increases and new revenue sources -- increasing the gas tax or supplementing it with new fees/taxes.

In addition to the six year funding renewal Congress seems poised to make a major one-time investment in the nation's infrastructure as a means for economic stimulus. Numbers and proposals seem to change by the minute. However, it appears that something between $100-300 billion dollars could be spent on capital infrastructure improvements alone. Projects that are 'ready to go' but not currently funded are likely to be fast-tracked and schedules significantly advanced. Therefore, many government officials are being encouraged to have projects prepared so that when money is being distributed they can be able to fully take advantage of available funds. Unfortunately, many of the current proposals include little to no funding for the day-to-day operational and personnel expenses within government entities. This leads to the potential for some long hours in many entities where the amount of active projects may be doubling (or more) yet internal personnel may remain flat or even be reduced as people retire and hiring freezes remain in effect. So for some we may be entering the 'best of times' and for others it may be the 'worst of times'. 2009 will certainly be an interesting year in the industry.