The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) awarded $234,613,776 in asphalt-related single-bid contracts during the first six months of the year.

In total, the highway industry’s successful bids for those projects exceeded the cabinet engineer’s estimates by $2,904,328.

Here is a breakdown of the single-bid awards by company:

• Scotty’s Contracting: 34 single-bid awards totaling $70,592,946.

• Mountain Enterprises: 30 single-bid awards totaling $34,213,277.

• L-M Asphalt Partners: 15 single-bid awards totaling $32,319,642.

• Rogers Group: 10 single-bid awards totaling $28,778,780.

• Hinkle Contracting: 32 single-bid awards totaling $20,641,921.

• The Allen Co.: 12 single-bid awards totaling $11,436,723.

• Mago Construction Co.: 8 single-bid awards totaling $7,583,830.

• Jim Smith Contracting: 17 single-bid awards totaling $7,397,187.

• Walker Construction: 3 single-bid awards totaling $4,644,060.

• Lexington Quarry Co.: 2 single-bid awards totaling $3,576,310.

• Yager Materials: 3 single-bid awards totaling $3,190,693.

• Gaddie-Shamrock: 2 single-bid awards totaling $2,695,510.

• Eaton Asphalt: 5 single-bid awards totaling $2,154,711.

• H.G. Mays Corp.: 4 single-bid awards totaling $1,267,840.

• Haydon Materials: 3 single-bid awards totaling $1,133,767.

• Ragle Inc.: 1 single-bid award totaling $1,063,785.

• Murray Paving: 3 single-bid awards totaling $960,989.

• Kay & Kay Contracting: 1 single-bid award totaling $593,821.

• Rame Contracting: 1 single-bid award totaling $367,974.

Six companies — Scotty’s Contracting, Mountain Enterprises, L-M Asphalt Partners, Rogers Group, Hinkle Contracting and The Allen Company — accounted for 84.4% of the single-bid contracts (based on the monetary value of the awards) during the first six months of 2022.

Last year, an investigation from the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting reported:

The transportation cabinet is exempt by law from following the state’s procurement code, instead following a bidding system experts say allows a handful of large companies to avoid serious competition for jobs.

As a result, more than $2 billion in current work is controlled by a dozen companies — who often are the sole bidder on the contracts they’re awarded.

Jim Gray, the Secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, testified in front of the legislature last month:

“To get through (this inflationary period) the Transportation Cabinet will do what Kentucky families…are doing all over the Commonwealth. We will adjust and adapt. When I talk about efficiency I’m talking about we are working to ensure more than a single-bid.”

The Bluegrass Institute submitted 3 questions to KYTC for Secretary Gray. We’ve gotten a response that the cabinet received the questions but have yet to get a reply to them.

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I’ve posted the following note with each monthly update on KYTC’s single-bid contracts:

NOTE: Extensive efforts are made to ensure the data from KYTC’s publicly available information are accurately entered into this spreadsheet. I welcome feedback from the cabinet, the industry or anyone else if there are mistakes. I can be contacted at amcneill@freedomkentucky.com.

To date, I’ve not been contacted by KYTC or the industry to dispute any information contained within my reports. I continue to welcome any feedback either would like to provide.