The Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics & Education (KYFREE) released research today revealing the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) awarded $483,342,466 in single-bid asphalt contracts in 2025, a 79% increase over last year.
“The Transportation Cabinet continues to be ‘all in’ on awarding asphalt single-bid contracts,” stated Andrew McNeill, KYFREE’s President and Senior Policy Fellow. “It’s time to audit KYTC and put an end to this egregious waste of taxpayer resources.”
House Bill 505, sponsored by Rep. Kim Holloway, R-Mayfield, directs the state Auditor’s Office to examine the Transportation Cabinet’s asphalt awards every two years. The legislation requires special statistical analysis to determine if the beneficiaries of asphalt single-bid contracts are engaging in anti-competitive bidding practices that result in local paving monopolies.
A peer-reviewed study published in 2020 and co-authored by a University of Kentucky economist, raised questions of “tacit collusion” by the state’s asphalt industry. The study asserted that “stark evidence (exists) that county lines might provide a focal point for collusive bidding.”
Sixteen highway contractors secured single-bid asphalt contracts in 2025. Seven companies garnered eighty-seven percent (87%) of the single-bid awards.* Several of those contractors are connected through common ownership, joint ventures or are subsidiaries of multinational construction conglomerates.
“The ‘iron law’ of Kentucky asphalt bidding persisted last year,” McNeill continued. “Lawson-owned companies don’t bid into the CRH-Oldcastle counties and the CRH-Oldcastle companies don’t bid into the Lawson companies’ counties. And Kentuckians are worse off because of it.”
KYFREE compiles and releases research on single-bid asphalt bidding twice a year. In 2024, KYTC awarded $270.4 million in asphalt single-bid contracts. The increase in 2025 awards was largely attributed to one project: a $147 million I-75 project awarded in August to L-M Asphalt Partners.
A 2024 report from the General Assembly’s Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee found that single-bid projects are the most frequent awards for asphalt projects by the Transportation Cabinet. Single-bid projects have been a problem in Kentucky for decades, raising questions of why KYTC has been unable or unwilling to address the abusive and wasteful practice.
The Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics & Education is the state’s leading taxpayer watchdog & free market think tank. The non-profit policy think tank is committed to empowering individuals and promoting access to opportunity by creating, shaping and advancing policy solutions to the most significant challenges facing Kentucky. (www.kentuckyfree.org)
* Hinkle Contracting $46,934,535; Jim Smith Contracting $72,138,254; L-M Asphalt Partners $168,453,685; Mountain Enterprises $39,884,573; Rogers Group $33,270,406; Scotty’s Contracting $32,755,184; The Allen Co. $30,565,635.