Wow. We paid a company to paint a major Interstate bridge. They took the money and bailed. Did not even do the pre-engineering work. Instead of suing them, arresting them or you know trying to get the cash back, the state doubled down and paid a friend of the governor to hire a company to paint the bridge under questionable terms. One of the terms was a demand to scrub the rust and scale off the bridge. The second company, now doing the actual work, found out that scrubbing the rust and scale would weaken the bridge and wanted to go in and treat the rust to make everything stronger and more corrosion resistant. The state bucked at the cost increase so company 2 waited out the terms of the contract and walked away... WITH FULL PAYMENT.

Company three came in with federal cash and finished the job. Add into this whole mess was a fear, found with I think company one, that the paint they originally used was full of lead and lead additives and they did not want to pay to prevent all that lead and heavy metals to go into the Ohio River. Note that they did not include the environmental concerns in the original bids. They ended up spending almost as much on the repaint as it would have cost to make a whole new bridge across the river.

http://www.kentuckyroads.com/kennedy_bridge_painting/

This is before we get into the 20+ year fight to get a whole new bridge to increase traffic load across the river. This project was fought by 10 wealthy families that did not want a new bridge on their side of town and played every single trick they could including marking a few large homes as nationally protected historical properties to prevent them from being harmed by new highway construction.