🌎 Resumen en español · traducción automática
Un análisis de un grupo de libre mercado reveló que la empresa L-M Asphalt Partners, con sede en Fayette County, recibió más de 424 millones de dólares en contratos de pavimentación de asfalto sin competencia entre 2023 y 2025, de un total de 1.3 mil millones de dólares en proyectos adjudicados sin licitación abierta por el Gabinete de Transporte de Kentucky. El presidente del grupo argumenta que esta práctica constituye un monopolio de facto en Fayette County, donde aproximadamente un tercio de los contratos de la empresa fueron realizados, y que la falta de competencia ha inflado los costos de los proyectos viales, dejando menos recursos disponibles para otras necesidades de infraestructura.
Traducción y resumen generados por IA a partir del artículo en inglés. Puede contener errores; consulte el texto original.
A 2023 legislative report found that Kentucky was an outlier for awarding costly single-bid road paving contracts. (Getty Images)
A new analysis of state road paving contracts by a free market think tank shows that some asphalt companies receive a large share of single-bid contracts from the state, a practice the think tank argues raises costs for taxpayers because of the lack of competition for road projects.
The analysis released Tuesday by the Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics and Education shows the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet awarded more than $1.3 billion in single-bid asphalt projects from the beginning of 2023 through the end of 2025.
Of that total, the Fayette County-based asphalt company L-M Asphalt Partners received contracts worth more than $424 million. About one-third of that company’s contracts were for work in Fayette County, home to Kentucky’s second largest city of Lexington.
Andrew McNeill, president of the think tank and longtime critic of single-bid contracts, said the analysis shows “further evidence” of L-M Asphalt Partners having an “asphalt monopoly” in Fayette County, with other asphalt companies refraining from bidding on projects in the county.
“These companies refrain from crossing county lines to bid against one another, and that repeated pattern is the definition of tacit collusion,” McNeill told the Lantern. “It’s essentially an unspoken and unformalized agreement between would-be competitors to not bid against one another, allowing each competitor to have a monopoly in that county.”
The result of “inflated” single-bid contracts, McNeill said, is higher costs for road projects and fewer resources available for the state to allocate to other needed projects such as road guardrails. A past analysis by the think tank stated single-bid contracts had driven up costs for road projects by millions of dollars over a six-month period in 2025.
Chad LaRue, executive director of the Kentucky Association of Highway Contractors, in an email said he was unavailable to provide commentary on the analysis because of an out-of-town business trip. Repeated phone calls to reach a representative of L-M Asphalt Partners were not successful Tuesday.
Naitore Djigbenou, a Transportation Cabinet spokesperson, in an emailed statement said the cabinet “prioritizes competition and works to ensure the state gets the best value during each bidding process.”
“While we cannot control the location of asphalt businesses in Kentucky or who bids on projects, we remain committed to enhancing competition in the bidding process and delivering on our ultimate goal, which is to provide safe, reliable roads and bridges for families and businesses across our commonwealth,” Djigbenou said.
Djigbenou said cabinet engineers, who have a code of ethics, develop internal cost estimates for projects and compare which bids are closest to those internal estimates. Djigbenou said it’s also common for the cabinet to readvertise a project to encourage multiple bids. According to the cabinet, the state awarded 3,487 contracts between 2020 and 2025, with 1,292 of those contracts coming from a single bid. The cabinet rejected 535 “single bid proposals” over that same timeframe.
The analysis also found that the Transportation Cabinet awarded more than $214 million in single-bid contracts for road work across several Western Kentucky counties to Bowling Green-based Scotty’s Contracting. Another company, Mountain Enterprises, also received more than $182 million in single-bid contracts for work, mainly in Eastern Kentucky.
McNeill’s think tank has scrutinized such single-bid contracts by the cabinet for years, a problem he said reaches back decades in the state. He worked with a GOP state representative to introduce a bill this year requiring the state auditor to examine road paving contracts for anti-competitive practices; the bill did not receive a committee hearing.
A 2023 study by the Legislative Research Commission, the research and support agency for the state legislature, found that Kentucky was an outlier for awarding large numbers of single-bid contracts.
McNeill told the Lantern he believes there is “sufficient evidence” for state authorities to “ask the difficult question of whether or not the state’s consumer protection laws are being violated.”
“It’s really a question of waste and abuse,” McNeill said. “We could be doing so much more with the money that is coming into the state to build and maintain our roads if Frankfort would get serious about how we ensure that we’re getting the most competition.”
This story has been updated.
