Indiana legislators are looking to give themselves more say over big-ticket highway projects at a time when a proposal in Gov. Mike Braun’s hometown is facing significant local opposition.
A provision added last week to the bill focused on attracting the new Chicago Bears stadium to northwest Indiana would require the state highway department to present any project costing at least $250 million to the State Budget Committee for review.
House Roads and Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, said the step wasn’t directed at the Mid-States Corridor plans but at giving the Legislature added oversight of highway spending as the state must balance new projects with work needed to maintain and improve current roads.
Mid-States project in the works
The Mid-States Corridor is among the largest projects now in the planning stages by the Indiana Department of Transportation.
A proposed 54-mile route for the highway would connect Interstates 64 and 69, according to the transportation department’s project website. It would roughly follow the current U.S. 231 much of the way, with bypasses around Braun’s hometown of Jasper and nearby Huntingburg and Loogootee.
Pressel said the latest cost estimates put the total project at more than $3 billion. That includes about $1.2 billion in Dubois County, which includes Jasper.
“We’ll have to see how many dollars we have available to do that, because we certainly don’t want to do a huge project like that and then our safety improvement projects and our preservation projects get put on hold,” Pressel told the Capital Chronicle. “So it’s a fine needle we’ve got to thread, but we’ll see what happens with the feds and what kind of dollars we’re going to receive.”
Legislators seek review role
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jeff Thompson, the chamber’s top budget writer, said the proposed requirement in Senate Bill 27 had “nothing to do with” the Mid-States Corridor plans.
“With that kind of money, we should have review,” Thompson said in an interview. “It will be approved in almost all cases.”
Thompson is a member of the State Budget Committee, which includes four legislators — the Republican and Democratic fiscal leaders from both the House and the Senate — and Braun’s state budget director. The committee meets periodically throughout the year to review state construction spending and other budgetary matters.
State highway officials are still working on environmental review for the Mid-States project but had said in early January that construction was expected to start next year.
That brought skepticism from Pressel during a legislative hearing with INDOT.
“We canceled over 300 projects in the last year and a half, but we’re going to spend a billion dollars on a brand-new roadway,” Pressel said. “… I’m not — I’m not getting it. … I’m really looking for some guidance on how we’re doing this, but yet we’re killing other projects.”
Project timeline unsettled
Soon after that meeting, the expected Jan. 29 release of the project’s request for proposals from contractors was called off without a new date being set.
Highway department spokeswoman Cassandra Bajek said Monday that internal reviews for a new RFP timeline have not yet been completed.
As for the oversight provision being considered by lawmakers, she said “INDOT continues to monitor legislative and procedural changes, including the requirements outlined in Senate Bill 27, and will ensure compliance with any budget committee oversight provisions as they are implemented.”
Braun’s office did not immediately comment Monday to the Capital Chronicle about the proposed highway project language.
Many local residents and officials have opposed the Mid-States Corridor plan as too expensive and unnecessary. A poll released in December by project opponents found that 81% of Dubois County residents were against it.
Pressel said Monday that with uncertainty over federal highway funding to the states, the Legislature should monitor which state projects get priority.
“Since we can’t pick projects … I think that’s fair that a project that size goes before the Budget Committee, just so we have an idea what’s going on,” he said. “Where are our dollars getting spent, what projects and how much bang for our buck are we getting.”
Niki Kelly contributed to this report.
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