State Drastically Reduces Estimate Of Irene Damage Costs

(Host) There's been a big drop in the estimated cost of repairing state roads and bridges from damages caused by Tropical Storm Irene.

Governor Peter Shumlin says the state used a number of shortcuts during the emergency repair period - and that cut costs by more than half.

VPR's Bob Kinzel reports.

(Kinzel) Two weeks ago, the Shumlin administration released its cost projections to repair the state's transportation infrastructure.

The best case scenario was just under 100 million dollars and it assumed that Congress would lift a cap on federal highway disaster funds. The worst case was roughly half a billion dollars and it assumed no federal waivers.

The governor says those preliminary estimates turned out to be much higher than reality.

(Shumlin) "We do not believe that the state cost for our state and local roads will exceed $250 million. And we're optimistic that we may well come in below that. So that's great news for Vermont taxpayers and great news for all us."

(Kinzel) Why were the initial estimates so much higher than the true costs?  Deputy Transportation Secretary Sue Minter says different rules and regulations apply in emergency situations.

(Minter) "When we are in an emergency, we don't have to take on all of the normal construction processes. Those extend from permitting at the federal and sate permitting, to community outreach, to surveying to negotiation and compensation for right of way. A whole host of processes that we were able to short cut in this emergency response."

(Kinzel) The governor says he wants to know if some of these bureaucratic short cuts can be used in normal transportation planning.

(Shumlin) "Is this going to change the way we build roads and bridges in Vermont? You can be assured that - in the interests of delivering the best possible roads and bridges and the transportation infrastructure that we can to hard pressed taxpayers in Vermont - that we've asked the Agency of Transportation to work with the administration to assess how we can bring this kind of good news to future road projects."

(Kinzel) Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding says that it's now possible that the state will be able avoid imposing any new taxes to repair the roads.

(Spaulding) "If we had the best case scenario and the cap is lifted, I would say that we would certainly be able to do this without raising new revenues and not having a significant impact on the transportation system."

(Kinzel) State officials say they're still optimistic that all roads in Vermont will be open by the middle of December.

For VPR News, I'm Bob Kinzel in Montpelier