(1) All funds and moneys to the credit of the department of transportation shall be expended under the supervision and direction of the commission within the total expenditures prescribed by the general assembly for the fiscal year pursuant to section 43-1-112.5; except that moneys in the aviation fund shall be expended pursuant to the provisions of article 10 of this title.

(2) Annually on or before December 15, the commission shall adopt and the department of transportation shall submit to the joint budget committee, the house transportation and energy committee, the senate transportation committee, and the governor a proposed budget allocation plan for moneys subject to its jurisdiction for the fiscal year beginning on July 1 of the succeeding year. The plan shall be submitted in a format determined by the joint budget committee and shall include, but not be limited to, the following information:

(a) Estimates of all available revenues displayed by source of moneys, including any carry forward balances anticipated and any restrictions on any available moneys;

(b) All interest and debt redemption charges during the fiscal year;

(c) Allocation of spending, by the following categories of expenditure:

(I) Maintenance of the state highway system;

(II) Construction projects on the state highway system, including capacity increases;

(III) Administration, which is deemed to include salaries and expenses of the following offices and their staffs: Commission, executive director, chief engineer, district engineers, budget, internal audits, public relations, equal employment, special activities, accounting, administrative services, building operations, management systems, personnel, procurement, insurance, legal, and central data processing;

(IV) Other departmental staff which are allocated to maintenance or construction costs on the state highway system and the basis for such allocation;

(V) Repealed.

(VI) (A) Estimated statewide indirect cost recoveries of state agencies payable from the state highway fund as required by subsection (8) of this section.

(B) Repealed.

(VII) Any land acquisitions pursuant to maintenance or construction projects, including land acquisitions which may be accomplished by eminent domain;

(VIII) All construction and maintenance projects, grouped by priority order according to both transportation commission district and statewide priority;

(d) A summary of allocation of spending for the current fiscal year indicating expenditures which are different from recommended changes made to the proposed budget allocation plan by the joint budget committee, the house transportation and energy committee, and the senate transportation committee in their responses to such plan for the current fiscal year;

(e) A procedure for dealing with emergencies and contingencies unforeseen at the time of the preparation of the plan and an enumeration of other spending which could be reduced in order to deal with such emergencies or contingencies.

(2.5) Annually on or before October 1, the commission shall submit a request for state highway reconstruction, repair, or maintenance projects to the capital development committee to be funded from money transferred to the capital construction fund pursuant to section 24-75-302 (2), C.R.S. Such request must be made in accordance with section 2-3-1304 (1)(a.5), C.R.S.

(3) (a) For the fiscal year 1993-94 and for each fiscal year thereafter, appropriations made by the general assembly to the department of transportation for administrative expenditures, which are listed in subparagraph (III) of paragraph (c) of subsection (2) of this section, shall be set forth in a single line item as a total sum, and such expenditures shall not be identified by project, program, or district.

(b) The provisions of this subsection (3) shall not apply to the aeronautics division.

(4) (Deleted by amendment, L. 2007, p. 593, § 1, effective August 3, 2007.)

(5) Repealed.

(6)

(a) The amount budgeted for administration in no case shall exceed five percent of the total budget allocation plan. In addition to any other requirements, the budget allocation plan shall include a general state transportation budget summary setting forth the aggregate figures of the budget in such manner as to show the balanced relations between the total proposed expenditures and total anticipated revenues, together with the other means of financing the budget for the ensuing fiscal year compiled with corresponding figures for the last completed fiscal year and the fiscal year in progress. It shall also include the statements of the bonded indebtedness of the department of transportation showing the debt redemption requirements, the debt authorized and unissued, and the contents of the sinking funds. As an addendum to the budget allocation plan, there shall be published a complete list of all projects budgeted in prior years which have not been deleted or progressed to completion, including all funds carried over from the budget of previous years, whether resulting from construction or operation for less than the budgeted figure or from incomplete or deleted projects.

(b) Repealed.

(7) Repealed.

(8) (a) The department, out of moneys in the state highway fund budgeted therefor by the transportation commission and within the total expenditures prescribed by the general assembly for the fiscal year pursuant to section 43-1-112.5, shall reimburse other agencies of state government for the costs incurred by such state agencies in providing necessary services in support of the department and the administration of the highway funds of the state. Such state agencies include, but are not necessarily limited to, the office of the state controller in the department of personnel, the office of state planning and budgeting, the department of personnel, the department of revenue, and the department of the treasury. For any fiscal year, the amount paid to any such state agency shall be the amount indicated in the general appropriation act as the recovery of indirect costs by such state agency out of the state highway fund. The amount so indicated in the general appropriation act for the recovery of indirect costs by any state agency pursuant to this subsection (8) may exceed the actual indirect cost incurred by such agency, but the total of all such statewide indirect cost recoveries indicated in the general appropriation act shall not exceed the total indirect costs reasonably expected to be incurred by all state agencies in providing necessary services in support of the department and the administration of the highway funds of the state. Payments made pursuant to this subsection (8) shall not be subject to the limitations on appropriations and statutory distributions from the highway users tax fund contained in section 43-4-201 (3).

(b) Repealed.

(9) (a) The house transportation and energy committee and the senate transportation committee shall hold a joint meeting, including the opportunity for a public hearing, for the purpose of review and comment on the proposed budget allocation plan. No later than March 15 of each year, the official response of the house transportation and energy committee and the senate transportation committee to the proposed budget allocation plan, along with any recommended changes to such plan, shall be transmitted to the commission. The joint budget committee may also, by said March 15, transmit to the commission its response to the proposed budget allocation plan. The staff of the joint budget committee shallbe available to assist the house transportation and energy committee and the senate transportation committee in their joint review of the proposed budget allocation plan. Nothing contained in this paragraph (a) shall be construed to affect the general powers and duties of the joint budget committee relating to its review of the executive budget and the budget requests of state agencies, including the department of transportation, under section 2-3-203, C.R.S.

(b) Repealed.

(c)

(I) No later than April 15 of each year, the commission shall adopt a final budget allocation plan which shall, upon approval of the governor, constitute the budget for the department for the ensuing fiscal year and which shall comply with the total revenues and expenditures prescribed by the general assembly for such fiscal year pursuant to section 43-1-112.5. Concurrent with submission of the final budget allocation plan to the governor, the commission shall submit in writing to the general assembly its responses to the recommendations of the joint budget committee, the house transportation and energy committee, and the senate transportation committee, or any successor committees. The final budget allocation plan may include some or all of the changes recommended by such committees, but no other changes from the proposed budget allocation plan may be made; except that the commission shall ensure that the final budget allocation plan is within the total revenues and expenditures prescribed by the general assembly pursuant to section 43-1-112.5, and the commission may adopt, consistent with said prescribed amounts, amendments reflecting increases or decreases in revenue or expenditures not anticipated at the time of adoption of the proposed budget allocation plan, amendments increasing or decreasing expenditures as a result of emergencies or contingencies unforeseen at the time of the preparation of the proposed budget allocation plan, and amendments reflecting changes in the amounts indicated in the general appropriation act as statewide indirect cost recoveries payable from the state highway fund as provided in subsection (8) of this section.

(II) This paragraph (c) is effective July 1, 1992.

(10) It is the duty of the department of transportation to report monthly on a form approved by the controller, within fifteen days after the close of each month, the expenditures made from each budget category and the unexpended and unencumbered balance of each such budget subcategory.

(11) Repealed.

(12) (a) No expenditure shall be made from the state highway funds in excess of the amount prescribed by the general assembly pursuant to section 43-1-112.5 and the amount proposed by the final budget allocation plan or amendments thereto adopted pursuant to paragraph (c) of subsection (9) of this section. It is the duty of the controller to disapprove any such expenditures when the reports reflect such excessive expenditures in relation to the amount prescribed by the general assembly pursuant to section 43-1-112.5 and the proposed final budget allocation plan or amendments thereto adopted pursuant to paragraph (c) of subsection (9) of this section.

(b) This subsection (12) is effective July 1, 1992.

(13) The commission shall have no power to adopt a budget allocation plan which diverts federal funds designated for other projects to any beltway within the Denver metropolitan region constructed by a public highway authority pursuant to part 5 of article 4 of this title.

(14) (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection (14), the fiscal year of the department of transportation shall commence on July 1 and end on June 30 of each year. The annual final budget allocation plan is to be adopted by the commission on or before April 15 of each year for the ensuing fiscal year, except for that portion of the budget for construction projects which shall be prepared as soon as practicable but not later than sixty days after receipt of notification of federal highway fund apportionments for the ensuing federal fiscal year.

(b) The fiscal year for the department of transportation for the purpose of highway construction projects shall be a calendar year.

(15) In any highway construction project involving an expenditure not exceeding five million dollars of state funds in any one fiscal year, the department of transportation, under the supervision and direction of the transportation commission, is authorized to enter into a single contract or agreement for such project and to finance same by revenue from more than one fiscal period. Any such project shall be budgeted by providing the required funds from future as well as current fiscal periods, and the anticipated revenues from future fiscal periods shall be shown in the final budget allocation plan for the first fiscal period in which the project appears, together with the anticipated necessary expenditures for future fiscal periods. Commitment on any such contract shall have priority for payment in the future fiscal periods after payment of such commitments as are now provided by law and after the payment of fixed expenditures for maintenance, administration, and other nonconstruction items.

(16) (a) If there are fewer than three bidders on a design bid build highway project, no award shall be made if the award is more than ten percent over the estimate of the department of transportation on the project; except that, if the estimate of the department on the project is less than one million dollars and there are fewer than three bidders, the executive director or the executive director's designee may make an award of more than ten percent, but less than twenty-five percent, over the estimate of the department to the low responsible bidder, as defined in section 24-101-301 (23).

(b) Repealed.

(c)

(I) Notwithstanding the limitations set forth in subsection (16)(a) of this section, the executive director may make an award to the low responsible bidder regardless of the estimate of the department if the executive director determines in writing that it is in the best financial, economic, or other interest of the state to do so. The written determination must be included in the contract file and made publicly available by posting on the department's website.

(II) In its annual presentation to the joint committees of reference of the general assembly that have jurisdiction over transportation required by section 2-7-203, the department shall identify each project for which the executive director made an award pursuant to subsection (16)(c)(I) of this section and shall explain the reasons for making the award and estimate the amount of cost savings achieved by making the award.

(III) The department shall prominently post on the home page of its website either a list of each state transportation project, regardless of the size of the project or the method of contract procurement that the department is using for the project, for which the department is seeking a contractor or a link to another page on its website that includes such a prominently posted list.

(17) In the event that geotechnical testing or materials testing is required for any state highway project, the department of transportation may submit a request for proposals to the private sector for the completion of such testing. Such private sector individuals shall be certified by the department of transportation.

(18) Repealed.

(19) (a) Any payments for transportation revenue anticipation notes issued to finance any qualified federal aid transportation project and any costs associated with the issuance and administration of such notes shall be subject to annual allocation by the commission, in its sole discretion, in accordance with part 7 of article 4 of this title.

(b) Federal transportation funds, as defined in section 43-4-702 (4), that are paid to the state shall be allocated and used to reimburse the state highway fund, the state highway supplementary fund, or both, for any moneys in said fund or funds used to pay transportation revenue anticipation notes or any costs associated with the issuance and administration of such notes in accordance with section 43-4-705 (2)(c)(II).