Getting a taste of stimulus relief

Of the more than $502 million in federal stimulus money for highway pro-jects now pouring into Minnesota, just over $4 million is going to repave a four-mile stretch of Interstate 35 near Faribault.

 For a few weeks anyway, some of it is also going into the pockets of 27-year-old Eric Margelofsky. He is one of scores of people who have gotten work fixing the bumpy chunk of 40-year-old roadway in the summer sun.

This is the scenario of success President Obama had in mind when billions of dollars began flooding out from Washington to jump-start an ailing economy. Critics have, meanwhile, complained that the process has been too slow, with too few tangible results in a nation with still rising unemployment.

But stories are starting to pop up of people like Margelofsky who are getting a taste of the stimulus -- and of the relief the money offers a slowed construction industry.

Stimulus money has allowed state officials to repave the stretch of highway at Faribault three years ahead of schedule. It has also made it possible to divert state funds to a crumbling bridge near Cannon Falls that needs immediate help and otherwise might not get it.

But there also is a sense that this project, which runs through the summer, is like a lot of stimulus-fueled initiatives: Here today and gone tomorrow, with only a fleeting effect on the state's 8.4 percent unemployment rate.

Even as the Faribault project and others move forward, Lee Hiller sits in his Mankato office and goes over the long list of operating engineers -- the bulldozer and grader workers who typically work a project like this -- who remain without jobs.

"This is the worst. ... I have never had this many operators out of work at this time of the year," said Hiller, a union official with Operating Engineers Local 49. "There is 14 pages [with] one, two, three, four -- there's 19 guys on a page" looking for work.

Glen Johnson, the business manager for the union, which has 13,000 members in Minnesota and North and South Dakota, said federal stimulus money would be little more than a "Band-Aid" for the economy's underlying problems.

Midstate Reclamation and Trucking has a piece of the Faribault project, but vice president Donn Johnson says that stimulus money hasn't done much yet to change the company's fortunes. While Midstate is enjoying a slight uptick these days, Johnson said that is due largely to non-stimulus reasons.

We're like everybody," Johnson said. "You have some work. You wish you had more." The biggest surprise about federal stimulus money, he said, is the realization that "it [isn't arriving] as quickly as even we hoped."

For every disappointment, however, there is a Dick Baenen, supervisor at Friedges Contractors, another Lakeville company working the Faribault project. "This job was definitely the only job going for a while for us," Baenen said, sitting in his pickup truck Tuesday at the project site. On a typical day, Baenen's phone rings often with calls from unemployed heavy-equipment operators looking to get hired.

"Obviously, they're all trying to network with anybody they can, trying to find jobs," Baenen said.

As he spoke, work crews waiting for the morning rain to stop emerged from their trucks. Traffic slowed in both the north and southbound lanes as 35W narrowed to a single path through the construction zone. Along the highway, a bright orange sign told motorists: "Project Funding by American Recovery & Reinvestment Act."

The repaving project is just one slice of a $36 million pie for highway projects being spent in southeast Minnesota alone. Those are welcome numbers for a section of Minnesota hit hard by the economy: In Faribault's Rice County, unemployment hit 8.9 percent in June.

Like the granddaddy of all stimulus projects -- the 1930s-era Works Progress Administration -- this batch will leave benefits of a different kind that will last long after the paychecks have stopped.

For the 31,500 motorists who travel this stretch of I-35 each day, the repaving will smooth out a notoriously rough span of roadway. Both lanes were rated "poor" for ride quality and, without the funding boost, might not have gotten any attention before 2012, said Greg Paulson, a MnDOT assistant district engineer.

Spreading the work around

In some cases, the immediate effects will ripple past Minnesota's borders.

Mattison Contractors Inc., a Wisconsin company, has more than a half-dozen workers on site installing guardrail. On Tuesday, a crew headed by foreman David Baier, who lives in Elmwood, Wis., was working in the morning drizzle -- their second day on the job. Margelofsky, who lives in Baldwin, Wis., is one of the four on the crew and will stay in a nearby motel in Faribault, and go home to Wisconsin on weekends.

"It seems to me one of the few things government's spending money on is road improvements," said Baier, wearing a bright green Mattison T-shirt.

Margelofsky agreed. "This is actually a nice job for us," Margelofsky said. Not only is it just two hours from home, he said, "We have lots of work. We've been working damn near 60 hours a week. No lack of work, I know that."

Although Margelofsky has worked for Mattison for nine years, Nick Birkel just started in May, and thinks federal stimulus money had something to do with his hire.

"[My boss] didn't come out and say it's because of the stimulus money [that] you're getting hired ... it's because they're busy this year and they needed more help," said Birkel, who was laid off as a carpenter for three months before being hired by Mattison. "I'm sure [stimulus money] is one of the reasons they're busy."

Nathan Moore, a 27-year-old heavy equipment operator in Fairmont, hasn't had the same luck. Like many highway construction workers, Moore counted on 70- to 80-hour workweeks in the summer. Now he's down to 40 hours a week in a temporary job as a roofer. The money is decent, he said, but not enough to make up for the lack of a union construction job since November.

"It's pretty tough," said Moore, a father of two children. Moore has told prospective employers that he is "willing to travel anywhere" for work as a heavy-equipment operator and constantly scans the news for the latest on stimulus money. "It seems like some of it has been delayed," he said.

Others, like John Myers, have opted for lesser-paying jobs that are closer to home. A 56-year-old heavy equipment operator from Mankato, Myers turned down a stimulus job on Interstate 90 because it was "a hundred miles away from home," he said. Instead, he took a local truck driving job that paid $6 to $7 less an hour.

"I'm just doing something to stay alive," he said.

Mike Kaszuba • 651-222-1673