Sen. Chris Marr: Transportation projects coming in way under estimate

I’m watching the press conference on job creation that the Senate Democrats held at lunchtime. It will be posted to TVW later today. One thing that has caught my ear: Sen. Chris Marr said construction estimates are coming in under what’s been budgeted.

“And I mean significantly under. Just as an example, a week ago we found out the Snoqualmie Pass project that was originally estimated at $110 million is coming in at $76 million — $34 million will fund a lot of other projects,” he said. “So, in this environment we can fund more Tier 2 projects as well.”

Sen. Derek Kilmer talked about one of the Senate Democrats’ plan to retrain about 6,000 workers. “The challenge we have is this: If you look at the demand for worker retraining, the trend line is directly proportionate to rising unemployment. So as unemployment goes up, the demand for worker retraining goes up,” he said, which can overwhelm community and technical colleges. Edmonds Community College, for example, has a waiting list of 200 people. “Our current budget funds about 6,200 of these worker retraining slots,” he said, and the colleges “through a rather Herculean effort” are serving about 9,000. The Senate bill would fund another 6,000 slots.

Tags: Budget, construction, Jobs