A year after President Barack Obama signed legislation that gave Virginia $694.5 million in federal transportation stimulus funds, less than half the job-creation money has been awarded in contracts.
The money that has been spent has produced the equivalent of 454.5 full-time jobs, according to state figures.
That's not much of a dent in Virginia's unemployment rate, which stood at 6.9 percent in December with 81,000 Virginians drawing unemployment benefits.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- a direct response to the economic crisis -- was aimed at creating new jobs and saving existing ones while spurring economic activity.
And it is working -- for those who have won the contracts.
"We got a nice job out of it," said Rick James, executive vice president of Adams Construction Co., a paving firm in Roanoke. "I'm going to tell you, I'm eternally grateful.
"Had it not been for that work," James said, "more of our valuable employees would have gone to the house."
Did that stimulus job fill the void in Adams' order book produced by the recession? "Absolutely not."
But, James said, "It helped."
Adams' average employment during the construction season last year was down about 100 workers from the previous year, James said.
Firms in the transportation construction industry are ravenous for work.
"I'd take any job right now," said Ed Dalrymple, vice president of Chemung Contracting Corp. in Culpeper County.
"We bid a rather small job up in Northern Virginia about three weeks ago," Dalrymple said. "Seventeen contractors . . . bid on it. I don't think I've ever seen that number bid on a job."
Of the $576.7 million in stimulus funding allocated to the Commonwealth Transportation Board, $287.1 million, or 49.8 percent, has made it to contracts for 40 highway and bridge projects.
Additionally, the state's five large metropolitan planning organizations received $117.8 million of Virginia's transportation stimulus funds to distribute. Of that, only $6.8 million for seven projects is under contract.
The state's Department of Rail and Public Transit has awarded contracts for $15.7 million of its $30.5 million in stimulus funds for transit.
State transportation agencies "have awarded only about 40 percent of the [total stimulus] work in a year," said Jeffrey C. Southard, the Virginia Transportation Construction Alliance's executive vice president. "We hoped more of the work would be on the street by now."
Virginia was the last U.S. state to begin to obligate funds for transportation stimulus projects, and by the end of summer Virginia was last in the country in getting federal transportation stimulus money into the hands of working people.
As of Aug. 31, Virginia had begun construction of projects totaling only about 17 percent of the state's stimulus funding.
The slow pace of getting shovels digging is due in part to the federal program's rules and in part to decisions made by then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's administration, which held a series of public hearings to gather citizen input.
"Rather than expanding projects already in the pipeline," Kaine wrote in October, "we are focusing our transportation funding on strategic investments" in major infrastructure needs: bridge and highway maintenance and construction work, and rail and transit projects.
Many of the projects "would have likely continued to be placed on the back burner had it not been for the Recovery Act," noted a representative for U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd.
Virginia is on track to have federal approval for all its transportation stimulus plans by next month, a program that falls to Gov. Bob McDonnell to administer.
"At this point, it is impossible for us to change that plan," said state Transportation Secretary Sean T. Connaughton. "We will meet the March 1 deadline for obligating the funds and follow though on delivering the projects as quickly as possible."
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.com.
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