An early draft of Oktibbeha County’s upcoming four-year road plan would calls for the county to spend an estimated $2.33 million on a number of infrastructure projects — including paving, resealing and overlay efforts — through 2019.
Supervisors briefly discussed the draft, which included 2016’s project list, Monday and are expected to approve a finalized version in the future.
Whether the county makes additions to the plan comes down to the availability of funds for new projects, said District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer.
Supervisors previously agreed to add an additional 1-mill levy to support its bridge fund, and Trainer is pitching a road bond that would be serviced annually by the new tax pledge.
Trainer has not revealed how much he hopes the county will leverage in bond funding — he previously said up to $5 million — or how long debt service could last. The board has not yet broached issuing an intent resolution, but bond advisers from the Jackson-based firm Governmental Consultants are expected to brief supervisors on their options Monday.
An upcoming $7 million financing package that will construct a new industrial park is expected to raise taxes by about 1.75 mills.
“Things are adjusting all the time. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we really won’t know what we can do until we know what money we’ll have. We’ve already laid [a bond pitch] out there, and the idea is to get it into the budget. Unless we have a major outcry that changes the minds of the four other supervisors — and I really hope we don’t — I see us going that route,” Trainer said. “New projects always come up, but the biggest thing for us is maintaining what we have already. We can’t make up for years of being mild on this issue just in a year or two.”
District 5 Supervisor Joe Williams said he hopes fellow board members will allow the county to add additional personnel and equipment in the coming fiscal year to boost the road department’s work efficiency.
Williams said the road department is constantly forced to move crews around the county, which means projects sit unfinished for long periods of time as personnel tend to an ever-growing projects list.
“I’m very concerned about the length of time it takes to construct, grub and pave a road,” he said. “That process seems to be a very, very slow process. It’s three years, seemingly. It just looks like one crew trying to do all of this. I’m not blaming [Road Manager Victor Collins]; I’m blaming us. We don’t have the manpower or the equipment to get the job done.”
Planned projects
Oktibbeha County will spend a combined $1.36 million next year on paving, building, reclamation, grubbing, overlay and reseal projects, the four-year draft states.
That figure includes a .8-mile paving project for Summer Tree Road; 3.7 combined miles of building projects for Pat Station and St. Mark roads and an undetermined building project for Perkins Road; 5.2 miles of reclamation work on Bluff Lake, Longview-Adaton, Oktoc, Pike and Turner roads; two combined miles of grubbing along Cedar Grove and Harrell roads and a yet-to-be-defined grubbing project for Walter Well Road; a .6-mile overlay project for Airport Road; and a .58-mile reseal of Turner Road.
In 2018, supervisors plan on paving 3.96 miles of Pat Station, Perkins and St. Mark roads, building back 2.67 miles of Cedar Grove, Harrell and Walter Well roads and reclaiming a mile of Polly Bell Road. The document, which does not list any specific grubbing, overlay or resealing efforts for the year, estimates the paving, building and reclamation projects’ cost at a combined $772,000.
A combined 2.67-mile paving project for Cedar Grove, Harrell and Walter Well roads is the only infrastructure plan listed for 2019, and is estimated to cost $200,000.
Approximately 552 miles of road are in Oktibbeha County, of which 141.6 miles are paved and 228.84 miles are gravel. The remainder of those thoroughfares are state aid roads.
State aid roads in need of repair and reseal projects include Airport, Artesia, County Line, Longview, New Light, Poor House (both east and west), Sturgis-Maben and Turkey Creek roads, and a portion of South Montgomery Street that runs outside of Starkville’s city limits, the plan states.
The four-year road plan also identifies Bethel, Bethesda, County Line, Longview-Adaton, Old Mayhew, Pike, Rice, Thompson and Turner roads, and University Estates as in need of repair. These roads, it states, will be repaired upon availability of county funding.
Of the county’s 146 bridges, the report states, five are now rated at five tons or less. Those bridges can be fixed with local funding sources at a lower cost instead of state aid funds, it states.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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