Hundreds of road projects and thousands of construction jobs should be safe for now, according to state officials.
Channel 11 told you last week that PennDOT claimed it needed $600 million to keep projects going beyond Tuesday, Dec. 1st.
During a public hearing ahead of Thanksgiving, Secretary of Transportation Yassmin Gramian told lawmakers that the department’s funding is in a “state of emergency.” She claimed that requests for help were ignored as a new budget was recently passed. State Republicans argued that the request came at the eleventh hour.
Channel 11 followed up Monday, one day before the daunting deadline, and continued to receive conflicting statements.
“The administration continues to work to address this critical situation,” said Lyndsay Kensinger, Press Secretary for the Governor’s Office. Kensinger stopped short of stating whether or not projects would indeed come to an abrupt halt on Tuesday, and pointed the finger at House Republicans.
“The initial fiscal code included language to give PennDOT bonding authority to address funding,” she said. “However, the language on the bonding authority was stripped out of the initial Fiscal Code draft by House Republican leadership.”
But House Republican Caucus Spokesperson Jason Gottesman disputed that during a Zoom interview Monday.
“That... as a response and accusation is very odd... that language was never actually in the fiscal code to begin with so it couldn’t be stripped out,” he said, adding that “we had a very constructive conversation with the governor himself today, where he basically admitted that there could have been better communication in the way that this was handled.”
Gottesman told Channel 11 that Governor Tom Wolf committed to ensuring that these PennDOT projects continue until February 2021, giving lawmakers time to revisit this once back in session in January. Channel 11 corroborated that with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but did not receive confirmation from the governor’s own press office.
On Tuesday, December 1, a PennDOT spokesperson responded to a renewed request for answers, providing an explanation for how the projects will be able to continue, for now.
Communications Director Erin Waters-Trasatt sent us a statement reading in part:
“As a stopgap measure, the Governor has directed PennDOT to anticipate pending and expected reimbursements to cover current construction and design expenses in the short term. This is not a long-term solution, as those reimbursements ultimately require matching state revenues to sustain, but all current sources are dedicated for other coming expenditures that must be reconciled as part of a true fix.”
Waters-Trasatt added that the temporary fix allows the department to make payments on existing work but new projects are on hold.
“We will evaluate emergency needs, such as a slide repair on a high volume road, to see that we can advance such and continue to make payments,” she said.
Pennsylvania senators Lindsey M. Williams and Katie Muth said on Wednesday that they will soon introduce legislation that would authorize PennDOT to borrow the needed funding.
“A short-term funding solution was worked out on Monday, preventing over 240,000 Pennsylvanians from losing their jobs right before the holidays,” Williams said. “But this last-minute bandaid isn’t enough—we need a legislative solution that provides the funding needed to continue these critical infrastructure projects and to ensure that nearly a quarter million of our neighbors don’t lose their jobs.”
“These projects are vital to motorist safety, provide economic security for many hardworking Pennsylvanians and are critical to infrastructure stability and expansion,” Muth said. “While this temporary fix allows for projects to continue and our workers to remain employed through the holiday season, we need a permanent solution that ensures long-term planning and continued improvements of these critical transportation corridors without unnecessary interruptions.”
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