Now Connecticut is left with a $2.8 billion bill, a cash-starved Special Transportation Fund headed toward insolvency, and a construction industry poised to shrink even as the state struggles with unprecedented unemployment. “Once we get out to the next several years, nothing is [fully] funded,” said Nate Brown, vice president of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council. “It’s a construction industry issue statewide, and the men and women who rely on that as a living could have some really severe consequences going forward.” Last year, Connecticut funneled nearly $2.5 billion into its capital program, chiefly through state borrowing and federal grants. This year, the projected total is $1.64 billion. Every $1 billion in stalled bonding translates into 10,000 construction and related jobs that could have been created, said Fred V. Carstensen, who heads the University of Connecticut’s economic think-tank. Projections from Lamont’s budget office show debt costs in the Special Transportation Fund jumping 23% in the next two-year state budget and by 40% over the next four years. The STF is running $61 million in deficit this fiscal year, and the administration says, at this pace, it will have exhausted its meager reserves and reached insolvency by late 2024.
Funding to fix CT’s roads and bridges is drying up, and officials don’t have a solution