How Michigan’s infrastructure point person manages spending

Zachary Kolodin is Michigan’s point person on infrastructure, charged with leading state e orts to take advantage of billions of dollars that are available under the federal infrastructure law. The money is being used to repair roads, replace lead water pipes, expand high-speed internet and build up electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Kolodin, a graduate of Wesleyan University and New York University Law School, worked as a lawyer in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s o ce before she appointed him chief infrastructure o cer and director of the newly created Michigan Infrastructure O ce in early 2022. The o ce, which is based in Detroit, also has a role in marshaling billions in funding from two other big federal laws tied to infrastructure: one to ght climate change, the other to boost the semiconductor industry.

 What is your role in how Michigan spends its federal infrastructure aid?

The governor created the o ce because she recognizes that this is a oncein-a-generation opportunity — the passage of really three major pieces of legislation that are designed to revitalize American infrastructure and to reinvigorate American manufacturing, especially clean-energy manufacturing. She wanted to make sure we were using all the resources of government, from our state agencies to our relationships with business and philanthropic stakeholders to the governor’s bully pulpit, to make the most of these opportunities. So my o ce is designed to leverage those federal funds, leverage not just the funds themselves but the organizing power of having federal funding opportunities that we have to collaborate around, to drive toward the governor’s vision for the future of infrastructure. ... It’s No. 1, building infrastructure that makes life easier, better, safer for everyday Michiganders. At a basic level, you’ve got to be able to rely on clean water coming out of the tap, on safe roads, on reliable power. We’ve got a lot of work to do make sure that we’re delivering all those services consistently. Beyond that, (it is) building the clean energypowered, advanced manufacturing economy that the governor believes is the key to sustainable prosperity in Michigan. ... Our charge is broader than one piece of federal legislation.

 How much funding is Michigan receiving and how much discretion does it have on spending it?

We’ve received about $5.6 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds, the majority of which is committed to transportation. We’ve also received about $1.5 billion in federal discretionary grant funding. That’s money that team Michigan went out and won because of the quality of our applications, not just because every state gets it. The funding available through the three acts together ... we’re eligible for up to about $50 billion. But much of that is in the form of national

Rumblings

competitions and tax credits that rms investing in states like Michigan and our neighboring states will take advantage of. ... The state has a fair amount of discretion in the way that, for example, transportation funds are expended. What’s important to understand is that those funds are not necessarily, especially the formula funds, additional to formula funds that we were already receiving. The Michigan Department of Transportation has a set of commitments that they’ve made and passed as their ve-year plan. So to the extent that we want to go above and beyond what we’ve committed to doing already, we’ve got to do things like win competitive awards. That’s why it was so exciting to receive the $105 million for the conversion of I-375 into a boulevard and to receive the $73 million award to replace the Lafayette bascule bridge in Bay City. Those really let us do projects that we either wouldn’t get to do for a while or wouldn’t get to do at all.

 What are some other key projects that are underway or on the horizon?

One of the most signi cant projects, which is led by Army Corps of Engineers, is the Soo Locks project (to build a new lock). That’s an extraordinary endeavor. In the Lower Peninsula, we’ve got the project on Michigan Avenue that syncs up with Ford’s Michigan Central Station investment, which we won a $25 million award for. ... Kalamazoo has two separate grants to improve the walkability of its downtown. Kalamazoo leaders saw the speed of tra c going through downtown as a major impediment to building the kind of walkable community that they wanted to live in, and they worked with MDOT to sort of reacquire the downtown roads from the state and then were able to get federal funding to calm tra c on those roads and improve safety. It’s a great story that’s a model for communities across the state.

 What does your job entail?

It really varies. The infrastructure o ce and my role in particular are focused on all aspects of identifying federal funding, chasing it down, processing

BY | DAVID EGGERT

it so we can actually spend it and then explaining to the public what we’ve done. My day-to-day (is) making sure that we are pursuing the opportunities that have the highest ROI for the state so they help us deliver on our goals. If we have in fact received federal funding or won the right to spend federal funds, (it is ensuring) that we do so in compliance with the law and that we do so on time and on budget. There are some broader challenges that really all states face. Do we have the workforce to build these projects? Not only today when we’re really just kicking o the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law buildout, but will we have the workforce in 2026, which will be the peak of the broadband deployment alongside the peak of the deployment of clean water and wastewater funds as well as the Surface Transportation grant program? Are we going to be able to acquire the materials that we need to build these projects? Because the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds similar projects in states across the country, that naturally leads to increased competition for materials you need to build the projects. That comes at a time when many parts of the economy are struggling to produce enough stu to meet the demands that people have. Our o ce has been helping to analyze those problems and prepare state agencies to try to solve them. Another challenge is permitting. We’ve got a great state department in EGLE that processes environmental permits, but they were really built to process permits assuming a certain rate of infrastructure build, and that rate increases under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. So how are they going to handle increased ow of infrastructure projects ?

 What do you do when you are not working?

I play basketball every Monday at Iroquois Avenue Christ Lutheran Church. I have two kids ... so we do family stu . I’m a pretty big basketball fan. I watch sports and go to Piston games. We were pretty sad that Saddiq Bey got traded.