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$45 Billion State Capital Bill Brings More Work To Southern Illinois

State Capital Bill Brings More Work To Southern Illinois
ET Simonds
/
ET Simonds
State Capital Bill Brings More Work To Southern Illinois

Governor JB Pritzker signed the capital bill today.

The $42 billion capital plan will improve the state’s horizontal and vertical infrastructure.

Illinois capital bill plan is official and will be paid for through a variety of tax and fee increases.

Those increases will pay for some of the states deferred maintenance and new projects.

“We’ve been hopeful for years that something of this magnitude might come through you know our general thought process is this is long overdue.”

E.T. Simonds Construction Company specializes in roadway construction and receives the majority of their work from IDOT.

President Beck Simonds says IDOT bids out projects every couple of months, but they’ve released a special bid in between bid cycles thanks to the capital bill.

“Our area seemed to fair pretty well; there’s I think about 18 projects.”

There’re more projects coming that aren’t road work, but not all projects will start this fast.

“I think these were projects that maybe they had already designed and just did not have the funding to put these jobs out yet.”

Simonds says his workforce is lower than usual, but is encouraged by the proposed sustainability the capital plan will have for his employees.

“Nobody likes these peaks and valleys in the work you know I much rather be able to hire an employee that I know I can maybe keep working for the next 10 to 15 years and not 10 to 15 months.”

The work from the special bids should begin in early August.

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