Is stimulus funding being applied to any market segments?
“Boosted by nearly $300 million in project lettings under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Wisconsin finished 2009 with a let level of $1.2 billion,” Goss reports. “This represented a significant increase over the 2008 let level of $79 2 million and is a testament to the strong public-private partnership that exists in the badger state to advance a proactive infrastructure investment agenda.” According to Goss, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation ramped up quickly to meet the tight obligation deadlines in the federal stimulus bill, and the consultant engineering industry mobilized to deliver a range of projects at the state and local levels. “This work helped stabilize the construction industry during a year fraught with economic uncertainty. There have been a lot of questions raised about the number of jobs created by the stimulus bill, but many state contractors credit the stimulus work for at least helping them maintain their workforces at the previous year