roadworkUpdated, 4:08 p.m., April 21

Last week, a plan to widen Interstate 94 going through the Kalamazoo area was the 2,000th transportation project approved under the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year. The fact that there were 1,999 projects ahead of it shows that Michigan has been slow to get stimulus money pushed through the state and federal approval process. How slow?

According to an analysis by ProPublica, Michigan has only received federal approval for 27 stimulus-related projects, a total of $110.8 million in allocated funds. That’s only 13.1 percent of the funds available to the state for transportation projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The real numbers may be even lower. Lori Irving, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation, replied to inquiries from Michigan Messenger, writing: “As of [Monday] morning, $94,660,076.59 has been obligated to Michigan for 15 projects.”

Compared to Michigan’s neighbors, this figure is quite low. Illinois is second in the nation in getting stimulus projects green lighted, already getting 249 projects approved with more than $600 million in spending required — that’s nearly 65 percent of that state’s allocated funds approved for projects. Indiana has 85 projects approved with more than $125 million in funding, for 19.1 percent of their total funds allocated.

Wisconsin has 43 projects approved with $129 million in funding, an approval rate of 24.4 percent. Minnesota has 58 projects OK’d with $192 million in funding, an approval rate of 38.2 percent.

Among the Great Lakes states, only Ohio trails Michigan. The Buckeye State has yet to have any projects OK’d because state officials there chose not to submit a list of projects until the end of March to give the public time to comment on more than 4,600 proposals.

In terms of the percentage of available money being allocated to approved projects, Michigan lags nationally as well, with less than half the national average of 28.4 percent.

When the federal stimulus package was passed earlier this year, it did not contain any new process requirements for approving infrastructure projects that were federally funded. Each state would have to follow its own procedures for determining which projects should be submitted. It is MDOT’s job to make sure that each project complies with federal guidelines.

In Michigan, the process works from the bottom up: There are 11 Metropolitan Planning Organizations plus many more Rural Task Forces that determine project needs and priorities at the local level. They put together a Transportation Improvement Plan, which is approved by regional planning groups and then sent to the State Transportation Improvement Plan, which has to be approved by MDOT.

That list of projects was then used to craft legislation authorizing $873 million in transportation projects across the state, all funded with money from the stimulus package, which was signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm on March 31. But that was not the end of the process. Irving explained to Michigan Messenger how the process operates after the state approves its list of projects:

There is a process in place to obligate the funds. The governor of each state must provide a list of “certified” projects to [the Federal Highway Administration] in order for the funds to be obligated. As required by ARRA, governors must certify that the projects were fully reviewed and vetted and will create jobs and promote economic health. FHWA Divisions in each state work very closely with state departments of transportation on the selection of projects that meet the criteria.

It is not known whether Michigan’s lagging approval figures are the result of problems at the state level or bottlenecks in the federal approval process, but Irving said that once projects are submitted to the FHWA “the approval process is very swift.”

Calls to the Michigan Department of Transportation were not returned.

UPDATE, 4:08 p.m., April 21: Bill Schreck, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Transportation, contacted Michigan Messenger on Tuesday afternoon saying that the numbers cited by ProPublica are likely correct, but wanted to explain how the process works and where the problem lies.

He pointed out that the bill passed by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm on March 31 was not the final step prior to sending a list of projects to the Federal Highway Administration for approval. “We can’t turn in projects for certification until we get approval from the local organizations and those are still coming in,” he said. “The bill signed on March 31 allowed Michigan to spend the federal money, because legislation was required for us to spend any AARA funds we receive, but it did not have any specific projects in it for approval.”

He further explained that the department is still waiting for approval from local authorities on most proposed road projects: “Anytime that we do a road project in Michigan, we need local Municipal Planning Organizations and Rural Task Forces to give their approval before we proceed. We also needed to do this for stimulus projects. We’ve been planning since last year since we first knew about the AARA that we needed to get projects together and we were doing that. We’d been in contact with the MPOs and RTFs to let them know these things were coming but they needed to follow their own processes. By federal law, we had to follow our usual processes and that’s our usual process.”

Schreck said the state was working to expedite that process as much as possible, but that it was important to make sure each project was thoroughly vetted and that “while this can be unwieldy on the front end, it does make sure that everyone at every level of government gets a say on each project before we proceed.”

As for when this backlog will be cleared and the rest of the funds allocated for road projects to put people back to work in the state, he said, “According to what we’re hearing from our local organizations, we anticipate having the majority of our projects approved and ready to take bids by May or June.” He also noted that once submitted, the U.S. Department of Transportation has been “pretty good about turning stuff around.”