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Along the road, signs of the times

E-mail|Link|Comments () November 19, 2009 04:43 PM

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Call them signs of tough economic times. Or are they signs of how federal stimulus funds are being misspent?

The state has spent tens of thousands of dollars on erecting the green-and-white signs proclaiming that road projects were funded with stimulus package money, prompting some to wonder whether there are better ways to spend the cash.

Signs proclaiming the funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are up at all stimulus highway projects across the state, state Department of Transportation spokesman Colin Durrant. There are 33 active projects and, typically, there are two signs per project, one for each side of the road. The signs cost an average of $2,000 each to produce.

"It is critically important that residents of Massachusetts know that stimulus dollars are being invested immediately to create new jobs and fix our roads," Durrant said in an e-mail.

"One of the top questions we get is where are our stimulus dollars being spent? So we also want to be transparent about what projects are funded by federal stimulus dollars," he said, adding that many other states have put up the signs and the design is recommended by the Federal Highway Administration.

But Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed budget watchdog group, said the money for the signs could be used more efficiently.

"It's a small amount of money, but symbolically, it's sure to rub citizens the wrong way. … It would be better if every dollar were spent on the projects themselves," he said.

House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. said he would look into the sign spending.

"People are hurting an awful lot out there. I think it just shows a bit of a disconnect. I think that there was an easier, less expensive way of doing this if, in fact, you felt it needed to be done," he said.

He suggested putting stickers on the orange signs that warn of construction ahead and publicizing stimulus-funded road projects on the Web and in press releases.