The Georgia Department of Transportation expects to close fiscal 2012’s books having doled out more than $1 billion in contracts for new projects.

The state began 289 construction projects in fiscal 2012, which ended June 30, with an estimated value of $967 million.

Three additional contract awards are pending, including $38.4 million for the widening of Ga. 347/Friendship Road in South Hall.

If those contracts are approved, the department’s total would exceed $1 billion, officials said.

In the past fiscal year, the DOT “completed and began projects ... that will expand and maintain our excellent transportation system while growing and sustaining our economy and standard of living,” said Commissioner Keith Golden in a press release.

Last year’s spending represented a huge jump over fiscal 2011, which had a total of $688 million in projects. The total in 2010 was $976 million.

“The thing to remember is that each year’s spending is from the prior year’s collected motor fuel (taxes),” said David Spear, the DOT’s press secretary.

The 2010 spending, despite being in the midst of the economic downturn, was higher because of the influx of federal stimulus dollars, Spear said.

“2011 was still impacted by the negative economy, “ he added.

The total amount for 2012 projects in the 21-county District 1, which includes Hall County, wasn’t immediately available.

Teri Pope, spokeswoman for the district, listed some of the major area projects, totaling $83.8 million.

Among the Hall projects awarded was widening Ga. 347/Lanier Islands Parkway from McEver Road to Interstate 985. The project will cost $11.6 million.

The Friendship Road project would run from I-985 to Ga. 211/Old Winder Highway. The contract was deferred earlier this month because of environmental concerns.

The project is pending the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s “concurrence on the final project plans,” Pope said.

“We hope to get concurrence and award the project in the next three to four weeks,” Pope said. “We are working with EPD almost daily on it.”

Also, the DOT has a $16.7 million contract on the first phase of the Cleveland Bypass, which will run from U.S. 129 at Hope Drive to Ga. 115 west of Cleveland.

Spear said the projected total spending for fiscal 2013, which began July 1, is $988 million.

Georgia is “seeing tax collections return to prerecession levels,” he said.

However, Todd Long, the DOT’s deputy commissioner, has said he expects federal funding to take a dive in 2015, after the expiration of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, a 27-month transportation bill approved by Congress last month and that has been since signed by President Barack Obama.

“They’re taking money out of the general fund in Washington to help fund transportation,” he told the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce’s South Hall Business Coalition on July 10.

“If Congress lives within its means ... there’s this general attitude that eventually they’re going to say, ‘Whatever the gas tax brings in is what we’re going to spend on transportation,’” he said.

If that happens, in 2015, Georgia “will probably see a 25 to 30 percent decrease” in transportation funding.