Bellevue State Senator Carol Blood has asked the Nebraska State Auditor’s Office to review and audit the Lincoln South Beltway Project, signaling a possible misuse of taxpayer funds.
In a Thursday afternoon news release, Sen. Blood indicated the project was originally supposed to cost $350 million when first drafted in 2020, but has now ballooned to $500 million. The project would build an 11-mile stretch of an east-west freeway south of Lincoln.
Additionally, without adequate public funding, Blood says the state is now using contractor financing for the project which raised costs by 110-160 million dollars.
“It is our understanding the contracts allowed bidders to evenly distribute financing costs and put upfront costs for securing a loan so the contractor could be reimbursed by the state immediately. Embedding the financing costs within the construction costs is overall deceiving and not transparent to the taxpayer on exactly how much they are footing the bill for financing costs alone,” said Blood in a statement. “I am concerned Nebraska taxpayers are overpaying for a project that could have been financed with alternative methods including municipal financing instead of contractor financing to keep costs down.”
According to Blood office, the contractor took out 3.5% loan for the project, meaning they were paid approximately 10% plus profit for simply taking out the loan by the state.
KLIN News confirmed with State Auditor Mike Foley that his office has indeed received this letter from Blood’s office, and said he would be sitting down with his team to evaluate whether they would be looking into this complaint.
More information on the Lincoln South Beltway Project can be found at dot.nebraska.gov/lincoln-south-beltway.