Friday marks the first anniversary of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, an event that killed 13 people, injured more than 100 and drew attention to bridges nationwide.

In spite of the focus, it's been a pretty bad year for Georgia bridges. The number that needs repair or replacement throughout the state grew by nearly 100. The number under construction fell.

And there's no big, new pot of money to pay the $3 billion or so the Georgia Department of Transportation estimates it may cost to fix the ones that need it. The bridges under local governments' control are in even worse shape than DOT's, according to a recent audit.

To top off the bad news, a pair of Georgia bridge inspectors left DOT this year after supervisors discovered their bridge inspection reports were faked. Supervisors grew suspicious when the team, which had been behind schedule, suddenly caught up by filing impossible numbers of inspection reports in a short period of time.

DOT hasn't added any new double-check controls in the meantime, and a state audit said DOT's controls seem reasonable. A couple of days a year, a supervisor spot-checks a team's inspections. Still, the audit noted, no system can ever be sure people are actually doing the work they're supposed to.

Other DOT crews re-inspected the suspect bridges.

On the bright side, Georgia is better off than most states — 10th-best in the nation for a low percentage of structurally deficient bridges — according to federal data reported by the audit.

All in all, DOT spokeswoman Crystal Paulk-Buchanan said, state bridges are safe. A deficiency rating "does not mean that a bridge is in danger of falling down," she said, but that the state needs to plan for future repairs.

"The issue is always going to be that we have more needs than we have resources for," she added.