OLYMPIA — The shock at the fuel pump, as gas prices remain over $3 a gallon, paled in comparison to the reaction to the opening of the bids for the State Route 305 widening project Thursday morning.

The state had estimated the project, which would widen the highway between Bond Road and Poulsbo’s southern city limits, at $11.4 million, but the apparent lowest bid June 1 was $14.9 million — 29 percent over the estimate.

“I’m a little bit surprised and now we have to go looking for more money,” said Mayor Kathryn Quade. “This project has to go through so we have to find the funding.”

The majority of the bids that were opened by the Washington State Department of Transportation were 20 percent or more over the estimates as well, Quade said.

“We’re not going to give up, but we’re going to have to look to see if the estimate was off,” she said.

Only two contractors bid on the project with Stan Palmer Construction’s apparent low bid of $14.9 million being about $400,000 below that of Scarsella Brothers, Inc., which submitted a bid of $15.3 million.

There could be ways to reduce the overall cost of the project, Quade said.

“We’ll see what we can do, but the worst case is that we’ll have to delay the project,” Quade said. “If we have to delay it, it’s going to cost that much more.”

When news of the bids reached State Rep. Sherry Appleton (D-Poulsbo) she said the Washington State Department of Transportation is going to have to make a choice on the project.

“They are going to have to decide where the extra money is going to come from or rebid it and take something out,” Appleton said.

The bids were disappointing, but the price of petroleum has continued to rise and that increase has had a definite impact, she said.

“I think there has to be things that can be taken out or just rebid it,” Appleton said. “We may not make this construction season.”

Fellow state representative Beverly Woods (R-Kingson), who is the ranking minority member of the House Transportation Committee, said the bids weren’t what she was hoping for, but she doesn’t want to delay the project, either.

“When you delay a project, the costs keep going up, which defeats the purpose,” Woods said.

The next task for WSDOT officials is to review not only the bids, but the engineer’s estimate as well and see if the bids are justifiable or make the decision to reject them altogether, she said.

Woods said she will keep in close contact with WSDOT officials and also look to see if any gas tax dollars are available for the project.

“We’re going to get this project done,” Woods said.

WSDOT representative Michelle Britton expressed her disappointment about how high the bids were.

“We need to take a hard look at the bid tabs to see where the discrepancies are,” Britton said. “It could be across the board or it could be one big item.”

Only two contractors bid on the project and Britton said she wishes more contractors had done so.

The bid opening was June 1, which isn’t exactly the best time to have a bid opening, she said.

In addition to examining the bids, WSDOT officials will be working with all the groups involved in the project to find another $3.5 million so the project can move ahead.

“Right now, I don’t if we are going to be able to overcome the obstacles,” she said.

If the additional funding can’t be found, then the project will be reviewed and go out for bid at another time, she said.

“We’ve been committed to this project for a very long time, so it’s really disappointing,” Britton said.