Pocatello considers moving money to fund connector project

The financial obligations between the city and the Idaho Department of Transportation have city leaders seeing red. To help the problem, the finance department is proposing an internal inter-department loan.

As crews work on bridge number 2 for the South Valley Road Connector, worries about making deadline seem to fade. Construction for bridge number 3 is on the horizon.

“We’re looking to switch traffic around the 1st or middle of September,” said project superintendent Tyler Clyde. “We’ll start construction on the southbound side (of I-15).”

While construction continues, so does the city’s worry to pay for it all. The city’s interim CFO Joyce Stroschein said the finance department has been working on different plans to be able to make their payments to ITD on-time.

The plan for an inter-department loan will be considered Thursday at the City Council meeting. The loan is for $2,067,000.

The loan would initially be made from the sanitation fund to the federal aid projects fund. The street fund would then make annual repayments into the federal aid projects fund, which in turn helps pay back the sanitation fund.

There could be wiggle room in this setup.

“If for some reason the street fund has an unexpected cash flow from highway user money or unexpected sources, we can actually pay down the debt quicker,” said Stroschein.

The federal aid project fund helps the city monitor expenditures and costs for big capital projects.