Executive Director of Construction Industries of Massachusetts Jeff Mahoney, sits in an office on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo by Ella Adams | State House News Service
For 103 years, Construction Industries of Massachusetts has advocated for members who work within the heavy civil and highway construction industry. CIM’s members work on horizontal infrastructure, like roads, bridges and railways, and the collective itself has a seat on the governor’s task force on transportation.
Jeff Mahoney, CIM’s executive director, has a long history within and outside of the State House, punctuated by his years working as chief of staff of House Ways and Means, working in the Inspector General’s office, and leading the Utility Contractors’ Association of New England.
In a conversation with the State House News Service, Mahoney touched on how the incoming federal administration plays a role in Massachusetts’ infrastructure projects, the funding obstacles ahead for the industry and the priorities next session for industry advocates.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges the industry is facing right now?
A: On the public side, administering that money and making sure it gets out – they obviously have deadlines in order to allocate, obligate and spend that money, and I know this administration and the Legislature have been aggressive about trying to get it out. On our end, it’s to make sure that our industry has the capacity to handle that. We’re all facing workforce issues — not just our industry of horizontal construction, but with the construction industry in general, to make sure that we know we have an aging workforce. We know we have the immediate capacity to handle what’s ahead the next couple of years, but we need to keep a long-term view of how those folks are aging out of the industry, and how we create those new, great-paying jobs, and also how to make sure it’s a diverse and equitable workforce. I would ask anyone that’s out on the road or taking a bus or taking the rail – look around you and tell me that our roads and bridges are in good shape. And that isn’t any shot at this administration or our partners in transportation, because they recognize the need. We’re just an old state, and we have to recognize the needs and make sure that if there are tough policy decisions, they’re not being made in a vacuum.
Q: Many of your members work in transportation construction, where the costs of projects, particularly urban transit like the MBTA, have skyrocketed over the past decade and are outpacing inflation. Do you have any input as to why that is, or what could be done to bring those projects at least in line with inflation?
A: Our whole purpose is to make sure that our members have a fair and equitable shot to bid on these projects. In order to do that, we have to make sure that the industry is in line with the engineering estimates and the cost that they see. There has been a delta over that. On the highway side, it’s not as big, because it puts out a lot more individual projects. With transit, there’s a lot of money spent, but they’re larger scale projects. In the past couple of years, the bids that have come in are like 10-to-15 percent, in aggregate, over what the cost estimates were. And that’s market driven – we don’t influence the engineering estimate, nor do we influence what our members are bidding on the project. But when you see the two being that disparate, you have to bring the groups together to discuss why there is such a disconnect. What did the T look at when they set that number? What did the industry look at when they set that number? We have to make sure that any operational deficit, we recognize it, acknowledge it, but it cannot take away from the capital needs. So whatever issues are happening on the operational side, the operational cliff that we’re hitting this year cannot affect the capital. You can’t rob Peter to pay Paul on that capital program. We have to find solutions to both.
Q: What is the relationship between that operational gap, and the inflation and market impacts, on your members?
A: In theory, they should be very separate. The operational side is one budget, the capital side is another budget. The T is a little more integrated than, say, the Highway Division or MassPort, in the sense that if those funds that were otherwise going to be spent on one-time capital costs go to operational costs – ongoing payroll or whatever or filling job needs – it affects our members, it affects the citizens who utilize the T, [and also affects] the workforce … because they’re dealing with shortage of engineers and an over-reliance on consultants. It’s a direct correlation if their operational issues affect their ability to implement the capital programs. Just from a strictly funding standpoint – “Oh, we don’t have to do that station for another five years, because we’ve got to fill this gap now,” and then that $50 million station, when you get to it, is now going to be a $75 million station, because you waited five years to do it. It’s just assessing how you take care of that immediate need on the operational side, while not affecting what they have planned for the future.
Q: Moving into the next legislative session, does CIM have anything it’s really focused on?
A: Trying to facilitate the opportunities that are already there – that might not be a specific bill we’re pushing, but we know there’s funding. We just met with Secretary Gorkowitz last week to continue that conversation about how we can be helpful, letting them know where the industry is. Coming up in the next fiscal year is the use of Fair Share money. The intent was 50-50 between education and transportation – there’s no one that will tell you it’s been 50-50. Education has gotten more than 50 percent since we started collecting. That’s part of the issue – we don’t want to have a tug of war of needs between transportation and education. As great as [the surtax funding] has been, number one, we don’t know the long term stability of that revenue source. And number two, we want to make sure that no one sees that as the silver bullet that has cured the issues facing both transportation and education. Transportation advocates can’t be the bad guys by saying, ‘Oh, education got 55 percent this year,’ and vice versa. We just have to work to make sure that the way it was presented to the voters, to have a 50-50 split between education and transportation, is honored. And we would further argue that the best way the vast majority of that money is spent is on one-time capital needs. You don’t want to rely on that revenue source for ongoing costs. We’ll have a baseline soon, but it’s still too soon to determine how that money is going to hold up in the long term. And you absolutely cannot use that [income surtax] money as a long-term solution for operational deficits.
One thing we also always focus on is worker and workforce safety. Working with our law enforcement to make sure there’s adequate police details or alternative traffic control, and just working with Mass Highway, the [Mass Municipal Association], municipalities, on on-the-road safety. We usually file something, and we have good cooperation, but safety is the number one priority.
Q: Federal infrastructure funding could change under president-elect Donald Trump. What’s your projection of how that’s going to impact Massachusetts and your industry?
A: There was a lot more focus in the first Trump administration on infrastructure, there was big talk of an infrastructure bill that didn’t come together. The current administration pushed through this large-scale infrastructure bill, which is why we don’t really have a crystal ball – we’re still working through the existing funding, and there wasn’t much talk during this [presidential] campaign about infrastructure, not like back in 2016 or 2020. It’s also about this incoming Congress, because obviously Congress has the purse strings. When this authorization runs out in 2026, the [Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act], it’s also in conjunction with the Highway Surface Bill, which has been the traditional funding source. A lot of the IIJA money filters through the highway-transportation front like that, we get the formula funding. And this is where I talk about the capital cliff, because while this opportunity has been tremendous — we have over 500 projects that have a piece of infrastructure money, be it state-federal combination or discretionary grants, which have been slower to come out – in two years, that’s going to dry up.
At the state level with the T operationally, the Legislature has filled the gap for any T issues with general fund money. A macro version of that is what Congress has done for over 20 years with the Highway Surface Bill, because the gas tax hasn’t been touched at the federal level in 30 years. In order to meet the level of funding that we’ve seen, in 2026 Congress and the president have to look at the $250 billion gap in those numbers.
I think states are going to have the expectation that that level of funding is now the floor, because the needs haven’t changed. As great as this opportunity has been, it’s not going to have the impact that we hoped it would for [various] reasons – inflationary issues, supply chain issues that COVID had an effect on, market conditions. [There are a lot of] unknowns with this administration, with this Congress, with the DOGE – and that’s not including the discretionary programs, like the grants we got for the Cape bridges and the Allston [I-90 Multimodal] project, and that the T got for the North Station Draw One Bridge. We don’t know what’s happening with those because that’s discretionary spending.
Q: If any of this funding does dry up, and that federal support fades, what does Massachusetts tangibly lose out on?
A: It depends on the programs. The administration is working hard to shore up some of these grants, and some of them come through programs that will be sustained. Transportation infrastructure used to be a lot less bipartisan, it’s [now] just become partisan on how to allocate it and what programs to spend it on. We belong to a federal organization, American Road and Bridge Transportation Association, and they have the federal connections, but we don’t have too much experience with the incoming designee, if he’s approved to take over for [Transportation] Secretary [Pete] Buttigieg. It goes back to, what’s our short term and long term plan? Short term to get our own house in order, and then long term – we do have a five-year capital plan, both on the transit and the highway side, we know what we need to do and we know the mega projects are out there. We just need to get them across the finish line, and those are the challenges that lie ahead.
It would also force the secretary and her team to be much more selective in their priorities in the coming years. We have a list of projects, and how many do you have to carve off that list and kick the can on? The more you kick the can on it, the price only goes up. We also have to be cognizant of the geographic equity across the entire Commonwealth, and not let issues in Boston suck up all the oxygen on our planning and on our funding. The vast majority of communities in Massachusetts rely more on RTAs or micro transit or just their own vehicles, and their roads and bridges are in the same condition. Whether it’s public or private transportation, you have to move along the roads and the rails, and we have to invest in them.
