State Must Be Ready For Stimulus (op-ed)

by Ned Lamont, Hartford Courant, December 14 2008

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-commentarylamont1214.artdec14,0,6707937.story

President-elect Barack Obama has made a massive infrastructure stimulus bill his top priority with the following challenge to our state governments: “Use it or lose it.”

Lose it if your state does not move quickly to invest the money in a way that puts people to work and enhances economic competitiveness. Connecticut has a wish list of good ideas, but for years we have been near the back of the bus when it comes to federal funding. Now is the time to make sure our state is not caught short when the money decisions in Washington are made next year.

Yes, Connecticut has a grab bag of projects that have been screened or await bonding authority, but many of these projects do not meet the strategic competitiveness threshold that the infrastructure deciders will require. In Greenwich, for example, state bonding for an Olympic swimming pool and a local museum upgrade are the kinds of projects that may be deferred as we prioritize our capital needs.

The General Assembly has its thoughts on politically important infrastructure initiatives, the state Department of Transportation has lists of roads and bridges that require maintenance and upgrades, the municipalities have school building projects, and the environmentalists will push sewage treatment and energy-efficiency projects — all of which meet many of the goals outlined by Obama. But every state is lining up to sit on the lap of the federal Santa Claus and say whether they’ve been naughty or nice. So, Connecticut better be prepared to explain how our projects can put people to work in year one, how they make us more competitive in the long term, and how we can pay our share of the cost.

Now is the time to put in place a state process for prioritizing these claims and building the political support for them, some of which may involve several municipalities or several states. The DOT’s history of “hitting the ground running” is about 18 months. According to the State Highway and Transportation Association, “shovel-ready” or “ready to go” is defined as under contract within 180 days. Of the association’s 5,148 ready-to-go projects, Connecticut has five, or less than one-tenth of 1 percent. But we still have time to catch up.

Once we have agreed upon our infrastructure priorities, we must dust off those old designs, update the budgets, alert the contractors that these projects may hit the street within six months, determine manpower requirements so our contractors and colleges can coordinate training, and work with our universities and think tanks to make the strategic economic rationale for these projects. Then, detail out the staging to show how transportation upgrades can be made alongside ongoing traffic, which is a little like performing open heart surgery on a jogger, according to Massachusetts’ Big Dig planners.

Given the current budget crisis, would Connecticut be prepared, if required, to put any money on the table, especially in a tough bonding environment? If the federal infrastructure pool can multiply our local contribution by five to 10 times, do we consider a gas tax to fund transportation projects or an electric surcharge to fund energy-efficiency projects? This is all politically controversial, so it’s crucial to start planning now.

The president-elect laid out his priorities: modernize our schools, upgrade our transportation infrastructure, make our public buildings more energy-efficient, extend broadband to all libraries and schools — do the things that make our state and our country more competitive — and put people to work.

For years, the federal allocation of money has been based upon rank politics, and Connecticut received 69 cents back for every dollar we sent to Washington, almost dead last in the nation. Let’s hope that with a new administration, the merits of the case will be more important. Connecticut must be prepared to make our case on the merits. We are one of the oldest states, with some aging infrastructure. The Obama stimulus bill could be just the jump start our state needs.

We’d better be prepared to use this opportunity — or lose it.