Kentucky Road Funds

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

I am very glad to see the Courier-Journal finally writing about how road money is spent in Kentucky.  The recent story about the large road fund that is spent at the whim of the governor without any oversight was certainly interesting.  Of course, this large slush fund should be of concern to Kentucky taxpayers, but it may be just the tip of the iceberg. 

Several years ago, I received a phone call from a man who was in the road building business and who had been accused of patent infringement for using a particular type of equipment.  We resolved his patent issue pretty quickly, but then I began to hear from him about the road building business.  According to him, most of the state is divided up among road builders so that, when the state asks for bids to build a road in any particular location, only one company bids for the job.  Apparently, the bidders first sign up, so everyone knows how many bidders there will be, and only then, after the number of bidders is known, are the bids actually submitted.  He told me that, when only one company signs up to bid for a road job, the job costs about twice as much as it would cost if there were two bidders for the job. 

While JeffersonReview.com does not have the resources to dig out the information, it would be very interesting to find out how many of the road contracts in Kentucky have only a single bidder and how much those projects cost per mile as compared with contracts in which there are two or more bidders.  And, if a large portion of our state's road contracts have only a single bidder, why?  If any of our readers have that information or can obtain it, we would love to share it with others.  We also welcome input from our elected officials, who certainly should know.

Experience tells us that it is almost impossible to sustain a monopoly in a free market environment, so, if we have a substantial portion of one-bidder road jobs in Kentucky, indicating a monopoly situation, then we must suspect that the state is involved in maintaining that monopoly.  Even the state's procedure, by which bidders first learn how many people are bidding before they have to submit their bids, seems to encourage shenanigans.  Shouldn't our state legislators be looking into this question to try to protect their constituents' tax money?  Shouldn't our large news providers with well-paid investigator on staff be digging for the story?

In the last legislative session, the governor wanted to raise the gasoline tax that is used to build roads in the state.  However, there was no inquiry into how the existing tax money was being spent.  Didn't every Kentucky legislator who voted to raise the tax have an obligation to first investigate how the existing money was being spent?  The JeffersonReview is sent to most of our state legislators.  Did any of you make such an investigation?  If so, we will be glad to publish your findings here.

The people in Eastern Kentucky say that they have few economic opportunities because they have few roads, and transportation is difficult, leaving them isolated.  That certainly is a problem.  Perhaps they could have twice as many roads (or even more) and the greater opportunities that go along with them if the state's road money were spent more effectively.