The congressionally requested report showed that half of the state DOTs spent at least 60% of their total engineering and design-related costs for such highway projects on outside engineering consultants.

While top state transportation officials look and listen for hints about President Trump’s promised, still unreleased infrastructure plan, they are working to cope with more-immediate funding issues.

With the $305-billion Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act on the books for nearly three months, the focus now has shifted to moving the five-year measure’s 2016 funding out to the states and turned into construction contracts.