Project funds get allocated based on a goal of redistribution, or on which counties' pols sit on the right committees, rather than safety or development needs. State legislators should constrain themselves to funding statewide projects, leaving local and regional projects to local and regional governments. Another option is to encourage private, rather than government, infrastructure projects. The State Project Design Monopoly State agencies and local governments have long used private firms to contain costs and improve project quality and speed by supplementing their own project design, engineering, construction, and maintenance staff. But state laws restricting public-private partnerships to deliver infrastructure projects abound.
Some states forbid outright outsourcing work on infrastructure projects.
In California, the state courts have bizarrely interpreted simple language in the state constitution calling for a state civil service system to mean the state cannot contract for any service state employees can perform. Legislators should be looking at ways to enable and encourage agencies and local governments to use private partners when doing so will save taxpayers money, cut project delivery time, or improve project quality. Research confirms these alternative project structures can dramatically reduce the cost and schedule creep that plague large construction projects. The latter three, which allow alternative project structures such as design-build, have two to 10 percent less cost creep and 40 to 50 percent less schedule creep than did Massachusetts, which severely restricts project structures. All states should liberalize their procurement laws to allow the full range of project structures.