Sorry, Yankton: more strut replacement for you. The Department of Transportation got just one bid for the Yankton Highway 50 reconstruction project, and it was way high:
By a 6-1 vote, the South Dakota Department of Transportation rejected Thursday the lone bid for the Highway 50 reconstruction project in Yankton.
The bid had previously come in at around $11 million, far above the estimated $8.7 million. The DOT had put the project on hold for further review prior to Thursday’s meeting by conference call [Randy Dockendorf, “DOT Rejects Highway 50 Bid,” Yankton Press & Dakotan, 2015.04.09].
Hmmm… did the lone bidder get the message from the Legislature’s passage of the big road bill that the state has lots of of new money coming in to spend on contractors? Did all the other contractors in the area not get the memo to compete for those new road dollars? Do our road contractors already have so much work that the state and counties won’t be able to hire them even when the new gas tax and wheel tax and license fee dollars start piling up?
Most bids for DOT projects opened April 1 had multiple bidders, and twelve out of sixteen bid items came in under budget.
C.H. THIS STATE HAS SO MUCH MONEY IN RESERVE THEY COULD STOP THE RIVER DOWN IN North Sioux city, with its reserves.Whoops isn’t that where Lederman is from.
Sorry, Moses. Yes, there are reserves in excess of $1B, but we can only spend that money once, and there is no way we should be dipping into that for road projects (which have their own funding sources). We need to make use of some of that $$$, but not for Hwy 50.
Ok Curt so lets fund those roads without raising taxes.How much in reserves is enough .How many billion dollar rainy days will there be.We can always raise the taxes so why tax the people.Wow thought you would see this.Gas tax then more int he slush fund.
Let’s start by adequately funding schools from pre-K through higher ed. As I said, the legislature has placed a high priority on funding road construction and maintenance, but not education. Do you think it would help if teachers started wearing ‘safety green’ vests?