Berlin, Vermont – June 1, 2011
Governor Shumlin inked a 554 million dollar budget for the 2012 transportation bill set to take effect July 1st.
Shumlin said, "This budget increases our maintenance budget by over 100 million dollars.
More than 410 million dollar will be spent on construction and infrastructure alone.
"We know that here in the 21st century we are losing the battle with our aging roads and bridges. What this transportation bill is, is about priorities," said Shumlin.
The governor expects this spending will put over 10-thousand Vermonters to work on our roads and bridges. But, Shumlin says the first move is to do what they can with the money remaining in this years bridge.
The first priority is making sure all existing roads remain open.
The state has lumped the damages from the storms in April and the damage form last weeks in their federal assistance application.
"We have amended the application to include this latest incident which will help us move money faster but we believe we are getting around 10 million, but again, that is a very soft number," said Shumlin.
Molly Smith – WCAX News
