This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Department of Transportation has enough excess funding from fuel taxes and vehicle registrations to cover an unexpected $8 million hole in its snow-plowing budget, a spokesman said.
The department had feared it would have to take money from minor construction projects to cover a winter bill made unusually high from frequent storms, spokesman Nile Easton said. Instead, legislators on Thursday authorized UDOT to use most of a $10 million windfall sitting in a fund that usually collects about $450 million in fees each year.
The finding means no highway rehabilitation proj- ects will suffer because of the snowy winter. Each storm generally costs the state up to $800,000, UDOT estimates.
