How To: Report on a Road Project, Follow the Money and Check the Numbers

Road projects are among the largest things local and state governments buy, and among the least covered in detail. A typical story reports a ribbon cutting or a traffic delay. The more useful stories ask what the project was supposed to cost, what it did cost, why the difference, who built it, how many companies competed, what the environmental review found, and whether the money could have done more somewhere else. All of those questions can be answered from public records if you know where they are.

This lesson is a reporter's and researcher's guide to Idaho road projects, from a key number in the seven-year plan to the final change order. It then closes the course with a statistical summary. Facts are current as of October 2026. Records systems and links change; if a link fails, ask the agency's public records office for the document by name.

The paper trail of a road project

Each stage produces documents. The table lists the main ones, who keeps them and where to look first.

Stage	Key documents	Where to look
Planning and programming	ITIP and STIP lines with key number, phases, years, fund sources; MPO TIP lines; unfunded list	ITD ITIP, STIP, MPO websites (Lesson 7)
Environmental review	Categorical exclusion form, environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact, or environmental impact statement and record of decision; reevaluations	ITD project pages, ITD environmental staff, FHWA Idaho Division
Design	Concept reports, public meeting materials, plans, specifications and estimate (PS&E), engineer's estimate	Project pages; records request
Advertising and bidding	Notice to contractors, plan holders list, bid abstract or tabulation	ITD Advertised Highway Projects and Bid Results
Award and contract	Award notice, signed contract, bonds, DBE commitments	Records request
Construction	Change orders, daily reports, materials test results, progress payments, schedule	Records request
Closeout	Final estimate (final payment), acceptance, as-built plans	Records request; state payment data on Transparent Idaho

Start with the key number

ITD identifies each project by a key number, a five-digit (sometimes longer) identifier that follows the project from the ITIP through bidding and payment. The bid result for a US-30 project in Soda Springs, for example, lists Key No. 23931 and Project No. A023(931) (bid result). Once you have the key number, you can match the plan line, the bid result, and later records requests. Local agency projects administered through LHTAC also carry ITD key numbers when they use federal money. ACHD and other local agencies use their own project numbers; find them in the agency's capital or work plan.

ITD posts pages for many larger projects with maps, meeting materials and contact names. Search the project name or route on itd.idaho.gov, and note the project manager's name; that person or the district public information officer is your first call.

Environmental documents

A road project that uses federal money or needs a federal approval must go through review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). FHWA's rule at 23 CFR 771.115 sorts projects into three classes:

Class	Used for	Main document	What to read
Environmental impact statement (EIS)	Actions with a "reasonably foreseeable significant effect" on the environment, such as a new freeway on a new route	Draft EIS, final EIS, record of decision	Purpose and need, alternatives considered and rejected, mitigation commitments, comment responses
Categorical exclusion (CE)	Actions that "normally do not have a significant environmental effect," such as many resurfacing, safety and bridge projects	CE documentation	Which category was used, any unusual circumstances considered, permits needed
Environmental assessment (EA)	Everything that is not an EIS or CE, including projects whose impact is uncertain	EA, then a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) or a decision to prepare an EIS	Alternatives, traffic forecasts, right-of-way and relocations, noise, wetlands, public comments

Most projects are categorical exclusions, which means little public paperwork. Larger projects get EAs and EISs with public hearings. When a long-delayed project restarts, the agency usually prepares a reevaluation to confirm the old analysis still holds. On the US-95 corridor from Dufort Road to Lakeshore Drive near Sandpoint and Sagle, analysis dates to the late 1990s and early 2000s, and ITD planned an environmental reevaluation and preliminary design for completion in 2026, according to the Sandpoint Reader (March 5, 2025). Reevaluations are good stories: traffic, land use and costs change over 20 years.

Bids: the fastest check on cost and competition

Where to find them

ITD's contractor bidding page lists currently advertised projects, bid results with links to bid abstracts, and look-ahead schedules for the next 90 days and 18 months, including LHTAC's local bridge bundle. Plans are distributed through QuestCDN, which also shows plan holders, the companies that downloaded plans. ITD asks the public not to call its advertisement and award office for results; use the posted abstracts or contact the listed staff by email.

Reading a bid result: two real ITD examples

A single-bid job. For Key No. 23931, US-30 from the Soda Springs west city limit to the east city limit in Caribou County (District 5), bids opened February 24, 2026. The engineer's estimate was $13,065,794.34. One company bid: H-K Contractors Inc of Idaho Falls at $11,495,869.00, about $1.57 million or 12.0 percent below the estimate. The contract was awarded March 12, 2026. The results page notes "Bid Abstracts not posted for single bids," so the line-item prices would require a records request.

A competitive job. For the FY27 District 1 bridge repair contract (Key No. 22795, Kootenai and Shoshone counties), bids opened October 6, 2026 (bid tabulation). Five companies bid on 42 items:

The line items show why totals alone can mislead. For concrete bridge deck removal, Class B (450 square yards), unit prices ranged from $10 (Coldwater Group) to $850 (N. A. Degerstrom). For temporary traffic control steel plates (lump sum), bids ranged from $9,924 (Granite) to $105,000 (Degerstrom). Wide spreads on single items can reflect different construction methods, risk pricing, or an intentional "unbalanced" bid that puts money on items the bidder expects to grow. Agencies review the low bid for unbalancing before award. The tabulation did not include the engineer's estimate; request it to compare.

What to check on any bid result

• Number of bidders. One or two bidders can mean a specialized job, a remote location, a busy construction season, or a scope few firms can handle. Track it over time and by district.
• Low bid versus estimate. A low bid well over the estimate may mean the estimate was stale or the market is tight. Agencies may reject all bids and rebid.
• Spread among bidders. A tight spread suggests the work was well defined. A wide spread invites questions about scope clarity.
• Unit prices on major items. Compare against other recent ITD tabulations for asphalt, concrete, excavation and traffic control.
• Disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) commitments on federally funded jobs. ITD publishes a DBE program update.

Contracts and change orders

The award price is not the final cost. Change orders adjust quantities, add or delete work, settle differing site conditions and extend time. Ask for:

• Every change order, with its amount, reason and approval date.
• The cumulative change as a percentage of the original contract.
• Time extensions and any liquidated damages (daily charges for late completion) assessed or waived.
• The final estimate, which is the final payment record, and the final contract amount.

For local federal-aid projects administered by LHTAC, the 2025 ITD-LHTAC Stewardship Agreement requires ITD concurrence for change orders above plus or minus $500,000. That threshold makes a good records request: "all change orders on LHTAC-administered projects requiring ITD concurrence since October 2025."

Measuring cost overruns fairly

There are three common baselines, and they give different answers:

Baseline	What it measures	Watch out for
Early plan estimate (ITIP line years earlier)	Growth in total project cost, including scope changes and inflation	Scope often changes; early estimates may exclude right-of-way or utilities
Engineer's estimate at bid	How the market priced the final design	Estimates can lag fast-moving material prices
Award amount	Construction changes after the contract	Excludes design, right-of-way and agency staff costs

State which baseline you use, and separate inflation from scope growth when you can. ITD's 2025 annual report, for example, notes that snowplow truck prices rose 77 percent since 2022, a reminder that cost growth is not always mismanagement.

Inspection and quality records

During construction, inspectors keep daily reports, and materials labs test asphalt, concrete and soils. For LHTAC-administered projects, LHTAC acts as ITD's representative for construction administration, inspection and testing under the stewardship agreement. For bridges, the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) records condition ratings from periodic inspections. FHWA's 2025 Bridge Condition by Owner table gives Idaho's counts of good, fair and poor bridges by owner; request a specific bridge's latest inspection report from its owner. If a road or bridge fails early, these are the records that show whether the work met specifications.

Following the money

ITD's annual report

The 2025 ITD Annual Report covers state fiscal year 2025. It reports $1,241.2 million in total funds received: $493.0 million federal reimbursements, $432.5 million state highway and aeronautics funds, $196.4 million from the Strategic Initiatives Program Fund, $104.0 million from TECM, and $15.3 million local. It reports $1.04 billion paid out on contract construction, 12,276 lane miles to maintain, 1,850 bridges (53.3 percent over 50 years old), 87 percent of pavement and 82 percent of bridges in good or fair condition, and 358 statewide projects delivered over five fiscal years. It says $400 million of the $1.04 billion contract construction payout came from TECM bonds, and it reports GARVEE debt service of $111 million in FY2023 (including a prepaid July FY2024 payment) and $16 million in FY2024. Treat an agency annual report as the agency's own account; check key figures against budgets and audits.

State and local budgets

ITD's appropriation passes as a bill each session. For fiscal 2027, Senate Bill 1426 provided about $98.9 million in additional appropriations and allowed up to $300 million in unspent fiscal 2026 highway and TECM funds to carry over for construction and right-of-way; JFAC's March 10, 2026 minutes record the motions and votes. (East Idaho News linked the loss of the $275 million to S1426, but S1426 did not itself eliminate that money. The $275 million was a one-time General Fund transfer for fiscal 2026 in S1218 (2025, session law chapter 337, signed April 14, 2025): $165 million to the Strategic Initiatives Program Fund and $110 million to the Local Highway Distribution Fund. It stopped because no 2026 bill repeated the transfer for fiscal 2027. See Lesson 4.) Highway district and county budgets are adopted each summer; see Lesson 6 and the budget cycle.

Transparent Idaho

Transparent Idaho, run by the Idaho State Controller's Office, offers searchable public financial data, interactive charts and reports. Where it offers spending detail, use it to look up state payments, including to contractors, and compare them against contract amounts; confirm what the site currently covers before relying on it. Local government data on the site varies; for highway districts and counties, the adopted budget and annual audit are usually more complete.

Audits

The Legislative Services Office (LSO) Audit Division audits state agencies and the statewide financial statements and single audit of federal programs. Its annual Report on Uncorrected Findings, dated July 1, 2026, summarizes findings still open as of December 31, 2025. It lists one ITD item, from the FY2023 Single Audit (Finding 226): ITD did not develop and carry out a value engineering work plan as federal regulations require for the Highway Planning and Construction grant. It is marked partially corrected. Value engineering is a structured review of a project's design to cut cost without losing function, required on larger federal-aid projects, so the finding is worth asking about.

Statewide audits have also been delayed. The Idaho Capital Sun reported on November 5, 2025 that the FY2024 statewide audit was completed nine months late and included eight qualified opinions, largely because documentation was not adequate for auditors to verify accuracy; the article tied many of the problems to the switch to Luma, the state's new accounting system. The article did not mention ITD specifically. Local highway districts must have their own annual audits; request the most recent audit and management letter.

The Legislature's Office of Performance Evaluations studied ITD in a January 2009 performance audit, with follow-ups in 2011 and 2012. It is dated, but useful for how ITD's management questions were framed then.

Checking the numbers: common traps

Trap	Example from this course	How to handle it
Lane miles versus centerline miles	ITD maintains 12,276 lane miles (2025 annual report); FHWA counts 4,945 centerline miles owned by the state highway agency (HM-10, 2024)	Say which you mean. A four-lane mile is four lane miles
Different bridge counts	ITD's annual report lists 1,850 bridges; FHWA's NBI lists 1,369 state-owned bridges in Idaho	NBI counts only structures meeting the federal bridge definition and assigns them by owner. Agency counts may include other structures. Cite the source and definition
Different bases for percentages	East Idaho News reported the Strategic Initiatives fund was about 18 percent of ITD revenue in 2025; in ITD's annual report, $196.4 million is 15.8 percent of total funds received	Ask what the denominator is. Revenue, funds received and budget are different totals
Forecast versus actual	The Division of Financial Management's FY2025 Highway Distribution Account table was marked as a forecast	Use actuals when available; label forecasts
Fiscal years	State fiscal year runs July to June; federal and most local fiscal years run October to September	Name the fiscal year system in every figure
Project counts	The July 2026 draft plan: 68 highway projects moved to unfunded plus 12 TECM projects not advanced to bonding, 80 in total. The Statesman story's lead said "nearly 70," which counts only the 68 highway projects	Go to the primary list and count
Nominal versus real dollars	Federal fuel taxes unchanged since 1993 have lost about 74 percent of purchasing power (CRS)	Adjust for inflation when comparing across years and say which index

For more on handling statistics, see Data and Statistics.

Roads by the numbers

This section summarizes the course in charts. Each figure gives its source and date. Use them as a starting point and check for newer data before you publish.

Who owns Idaho's roads

Idaho had 59,240 miles of public roads in 2024, according to FHWA table HM-10. The state highway agency owns 4,945 miles (about 8 percent), but those miles carry much of the traffic. Counties own 18,575 miles, and "other jurisdictions," which in Idaho largely means highway districts, own 12,045. Federal agencies, mostly the Forest Service, own 15,907 miles.

Where state road money goes

The Highway Distribution Account collects state fuel taxes and registration fees and splits them under Idaho Code. For fiscal 2025, the Division of Financial Management's forecast showed $546.8 million to distribute: $325.0 million to ITD, $217.6 million to local governments (30 percent of the local share to cities and 70 percent to counties and highway districts), and $4.2 million to the Idaho State Police as its share was phased out under S1201 (2019) (DFM table). The fuel tax rate was 32 cents per gallon. In 2026 the Legislature passed H716 (session law chapter 98, signed March 20, 2026), which rewrote Idaho Code 40-701 so all Highway Distribution Account user fees follow a single 60 percent state and 40 percent local split. Its statement of purpose says the State Police shift to the general fund was implemented from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2025 and that the bill does not change the 60/40 split. (An earlier version, H535, was introduced but did not advance.)

Where ITD's money came from in fiscal 2025

Bridges

FHWA's 2025 inventory counts 4,646 Idaho bridges: 1,468 good, 2,928 fair and 250 poor (5.4 percent). Poor bridges are concentrated among local and federal owners: 29 of 1,369 state bridges are poor (2.1 percent), compared with 95 of 1,571 county bridges (6.0 percent) and 63 of 731 federal and tribal bridges (8.6 percent). By deck area, 69,356 of 1,846,239 square meters are poor (3.8 percent).

The 2026 unfunded list

ITD's draft FY2027-2033 plan, released in July 2026, assumes no Strategic Initiatives money through 2033. The one-time $275 million fiscal 2026 transfer in S1218 (2025) ($165 million for state highways and $110 million for local highway districts) was not repeated by the 2026 Legislature. The draft moved 68 highway projects, about $1.3 billion, to "unfunded" and left 12 TECM projects, about $1.5 billion, without bonding: 80 projects and nearly $2.8 billion in all, according to the Idaho Statesman via East Idaho News (July 5, 2026). The story's lead rounded the 68 highway projects to "nearly 70." Fourteen projects in ITD District 3 were proposed for the unfunded list, and more than $500 million in southwest Idaho projects made the list. Projects already funded and under construction, such as the Idaho 16 extension, were not affected. ITD's current program dedicates about $200 million a year to pavement preservation and $100 million a year to bridges (East Idaho News, July 18, 2026).

Key figures at a glance

Measure	Figure	Source and date
Public road miles in Idaho	59,240	FHWA HM-10, 2024
State highway lane miles maintained by ITD	12,276	ITD Annual Report, FY2025
State fuel tax, gasoline and diesel	32 cents per gallon	DFM highway user revenue table, FY2025
Highway Distribution Account to distribute	$546.8 million (forecast)	DFM, FY2025
ITD total funds received	$1,241.2 million	ITD Annual Report, FY2025
Federal formula apportionment (core programs)	$410.2 million	FHWA N 4510.911, FY2026
Bridge Formula Program	$45.0 million ($6.75 million off-system)	FHWA N 4510.907, FY2026
Federal share on most Idaho projects	92.66 percent (7.34 percent match)	FHWA N 4540.12; LHTAC
Bridges rated poor	250 of 4,646 (5.4 percent)	FHWA NBI, 2025
Projects moved to unfunded or unbonded	80 projects, about $2.8 billion	Idaho Statesman/East Idaho News, July 2026
ACHD single-family impact fee	$5,803 (effective March 1, 2026)	BoiseDev, December 2025
ACHD FY2027 budget	About $261 million	BoiseDev, August 27, 2026
Traffic deaths in 2025	252	ITD 2025 crash report via East Idaho News
Federal surface transportation extension	Through December 11, 2026	H.R. 6500, signed September 2, 2026

Where this fits in the rest of the course

This lesson draws on all the others: ownership in Lesson 1, revenue in Lesson 2, the constitutional fund limits in Lesson 3, bonds and the Strategic Initiatives fund in Lesson 4, the ITIP and unfunded list in Lesson 5, highway districts in Lesson 6, federal money in Lesson 7, impact fees in Lesson 8 and advocacy in Lesson 9.

Related courses: Idaho Public Records Requests, Idaho Open Meetings, Local Government (including reading a tax bill), Idaho Property Taxes, Urban Renewal and Economic Development, Data and Statistics, the Idaho Constitution course for Article VII, section 17, and Budgets and Fiscal Duty for elected officials.