This month’s passage of Proposition 35, making it easier for the state to contract-out some highway work, translates to an economic windfall worth tens of millions of additional dollars per year for engineering firms.

But like so many industries nationwide, the engineering field is going to have a tough time cashing in due to a labor shortage.

“There is a huge shortage of engineers in this state,” said Paul Meyer, executive director of the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California trade association. “It’s really terrible. Even Caltrans can’t find the engineers it has budgeted for.”

As a result, Meyer said, engineering firms are having their staff work overtime, transferring personnel from other parts of the country to California and spacing out contracts.

The shortage has been caused, in part, by the booming economy, which has created a lot of work for engineering firms in the private sector.

But even if they get more staffing, firms will have to wait a while until next summer at the earliest before they start seeing the additional contracts from Proposition 35. That’s because the state Department of Transportation is going to wait for the next state budget cycle, which begins next July 1, until it starts allocating additional contract dollars to the private sector.

“We’re going to proceed with the level of contracting-out we had in place for this year,” said Caltrans spokesman Dennis Trujillo. “But next year, we certainly expect to increase the amount of work contracted out.”

Trujillo wouldn’t speculate on just how much more Caltrans dollars would go to the private sector next year. He said that in the current fiscal year, Caltrans expects to contract-out $165 million, or about 15 percent of the agency’s total architecture and engineering budget. That’s up from 9 percent of the engineering budget in the last fiscal year that ended June 30.

Meanwhile, the state engineers union, which has waged a 16-year legal and legislative battle to limit the ability of Caltrans to contract out engineering work, has taken a decidedly low-key stance on the measure.

Professional Engineers in California Government has yet to take up the issue of whether to sue to block implementation of the initiative.