The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has paid $625,000 dollars to a highway contractor over a delay in a Jessamine County road project and agreed to pay the contractor another $850,000 if work doesn't start by May 1.
The Courier Journal reports the damage payment was required because the cabinet didn't secure the land for the project before a deadline to start construction. The contract was awarded by former Governor Steve Beshear’s administration.
Asa James Swan is Transportation Cabinet Chief of Staff under Governor Matt Bevin. He says it was “incredibly irresponsible” for the Beshear administration to allow a project where the right-of-way wasn’t resolved.
Beshear issued a statement saying the damages resulted only because the Bevin administration refused to move the project.
