The legislature passed a road funding bill which will bring $1.2 billion a year to build new roads and maintain current roads in the state. That plan comes with a gas tax increase of 10 cents a gallon with penny increases for the next eight years and a vehicle registration increase of $15. The state will also look at tolls.
What does all of this mean for Marshall County? Commissioner Kurt Garner mentioned that means a little more money for local roads.
“And that’s what we were rally hoping for,” said Garner. “We don’t know exactly how that’s going to shake out. It’ll probably be based on the road mile funding mechanism that they have in place. Marshall County and all municipalities should be receiving funds based on road miles. Also, it looks like the Community Crossings state grant program that goes toward roads that municipalities and counties can apply for will be maintained at that 50/50 match level for counties that are in our population group.”
Garner said the commissioners will be looking at that grant funding to put hard surface back on the roads.
The Marshall County Highway Department began reclaiming, or grinding up, roads last week in an effort to repair failed roads. Garner said this is being done to make a better surface in the long run.
“To put a road back in the condition that it needs to be in, you have to start from the base and rebuilt that base and that’s what our county guys are doing. Unfortunately, a lot of those roads are kind of focused in one area right now. Much of the activity is being focused in the southern section of the German Township area.”
He hopes that the funding will be there to finish these roads this year.
“We’re going to try to get these roads back this year. We need funding from the county council to make sure that happens because they have to approve the match money that would go into this Community Crossings program. I’m just one of three commissioners so it has to pass the commission board as well as the county council.”
Garner asks that residents be patient as work progresses.
“There’s obviously things that we can do better particularly in terms of communicating with the public. We’re in a situation where somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of our roads are in that failed category and we’ve got to be able to put them back in a way that is sustainable. That may mean that some roads remain gravel which was the directive from the county council two years ago. We’re at that point now. There is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel with some potential funding sources that are coming from the state, but it still isn’t the amount of money that is needed to put the roads on a ten-year rotation. That would be about $2.4 million a year and we are no where near that amount of money in our highway fund.”
The highway department has 43 miles of roads that are listed as “failed” and will be working to get those roads conditioned this summer.
