It was MoDOT's way of showing Missouri how quickly stimulus money could be spent.  Now, senate bill 313 could delay that spending.  

MoDOT has 788 million dollars to spread across 37 projects.  The Federal Stimulus Bill, signed into law by President Obama, requires MoDOT to obligate half of its spending by June 30, 2009.  In other words, the federal bill gives MoDOT 120 days to determine its spending.  "This is a provision that normally doesn't impact transportation projects," said MoDOT's chief engineer, Kevin Keith.  He also said bill 313 "gives us some concern that we'd be able to continue those 37 projects and move fast enough." 

Keith says "The normal appropriation process in the legislature doesn't get done and signed by the Governor sometimes until June."  It could be a close time-crunch for MO-DOT. 

"This is about jobs.  it's about going really fast..." said Keith.   However, Keith says it won't be hard to spend the money.  MoDOT needs 31 billion dollars for high-way improvements.  The stimulus money will only cover about 2% of those needs. 

Despite what could be a delay, Keith says, MoDOT will meet the deadline.  "We might like to go slower and do a better job of involving folks...This money has strings on it.  To use this money we have to go fast."