March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., which has $20 billion of cash in the bank, is among the first in the Puget Sound area to benefit from the investment in roads and bridges through President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.

Local planners allotted $11 million of $214 million awarded to the region to help pay for a highway overpass in Redmond, Washington, connecting one part of Microsoft’s wooded campus with another. The world’s largest software maker will contribute almost half of the $36.5 million cost. Other federal and local money will pay the rest.

Work is scheduled to begin by June, while larger projects in the area await funding, including replacing an elevated highway in Seattle damaged by a 2001 earthquake and a bridge over Lake Washington at risk of cracking in a windstorm. Spending watchdogs and even some Microsoft employees see more pressing needs.

“I’m sure Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates could finance this out of pocket change,” Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said of Microsoft’s chief executive officer and chairman. “Subsidizing an overpass to one of the richest companies in the country certainly isn’t going to be the best use of our precious dollars.

“It’s a bridge to Microsoft,” he said. Ellis’s Washington, D.C.-based group, which tracks government spending, coined the phrase “bridge to nowhere” to describe a proposed span in Alaska that got $223 million in federal funding in 2005 and later was canceled.

Easing Congestion

The city of Redmond says the overpass will relieve congestion on other streets and support a big employer in the region, though one cutting jobs lately. Microsoft said in January that it’s eliminating as many as 5,000 jobs, including some from its Seattle-area workforce of 41,480.

“This project is a mobility improvement for the area as a whole,” said Lou Gellos, a spokesman for Microsoft. An existing bridge a few blocks away is congested and a nightmare for pedestrians and bicycle riders, he said.

The 480-foot (150-meter) span will run over a state highway from an older part of Microsoft’s campus to its newer west campus, where workers are constructing multistory buildings. Plans call for one car lane in each direction, a bike lane and a pedestrian walkway.

“Would it help me personally? Maybe, if I have to go that way,” said Jeff Fletcher, a Microsoft contractor waiting for a bus. “But I think there are better places to spend our money.”

Quicker Action

Without the stimulus dollars, Microsoft would have had to kick in more money or wait longer.

“We will be watching the decisions made by the states very closely to ensure the money is spent appropriately,” said Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman. “At present, this project still remains under review.”

The $787 billion stimulus plan, which Obama signed Feb. 17, includes $27.6 billion nationwide for highways, $8.4 billion to improve public transportation, and $8 billion for high-speed rail and intercity passenger lines. It requires giving priority to projects targeted for completion within three years. States can lose funds if they aren’t allocated quickly.

Microsoft agreed in 2006 to contribute $17.5 million, which was then expected to be 70 percent of the overpass cost, said Bill Campbell, public works director for Redmond, a suburb east of Seattle.

The city determined late last year that the cost estimates were too low and Redmond had no extra funds available, Campbell said. He had preliminary talks with Microsoft about paying more, but decided to seek stimulus funds instead after the bill was passed, Campbell said.

Concerns About Funds

“This is one of the first manifestations of some of the concerns we had about the stimulus: that you would have the use of federal cash for things that would have been paid for either privately or locally,” said Ellis of the taxpayer group. “We’re really not adding any money, we’re just substituting.”

At StimulusWatch.org, a Web site set up to monitor stimulus spending, 67 percent of 43 votes cast as of yesterday called the project “not critical.”

Microsoft is in the midst of a more than $1 billion expansion that includes seven new buildings, food venues, a mini- spa, a post office and one of the largest underground parking garages in North America, with room for 4,600 cars.

“Whenever you have a large employer and they contribute so significantly to the local economy, typically things that are good for them are good for the region,” Campbell said. It encourages Microsoft to expand in Redmond by making it easier for workers to move around the campus, he said.

While it’s fair to ask why the company isn’t paying more of the bill, the project will create construction jobs, Campbell said. He didn’t have an estimate for the number of jobs.

“They are stepping up and contributing a significant amount and I commend them for it,” Campbell said.

Temporary Effect

The stimulus may not boost permanent employment in Washington state, as most of the projects it funds will take just a few months to complete, said Michael Ennis, director of the center for transportation at the Washington Policy Center, a Seattle non-profit group that studies fiscal issues.

“The state is running around trying to find these little projects that are ready to go,” he said. “These people will all be unemployed again by the summer.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: March 13, 2009 03:00 EDT