Call it the scents of summer: Fresh-mown lawns, the aroma of backyard barbecues, the subtle scent of flower wafting on a summer’s breeze, the musky smell of summer rainstorm.

In Lowndes County, you can add another aroma to the list: fresh asphalt.

During its March 15 meeting, the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to borrow an additional $5 million to its budgeted $2 million for the county’s summer paving program.

On top of that, the state will spend $4.5 million this summer under its State-Aid Road paving project, which occurs every four years.

County Road Manager Ronnie Burns said the combined $11.5 million in paving will be the most extensive paving project in his 24 years with the county.

“It will be a lot of roads paved, a lot more than normal,” Burns said. “I can’t even guess how many roads will get paved because I won’t know that until we start getting the bids back. You’re talking about an additional $1 million from each district.”

Burns said typically supervisors submit a “wish list” of road paving projects each year and pave on a priority basis.
But this year, there will likely be more paving and less prioritizing.

“(The money) won’t let us do all the roads, but we’ll do more than ever before,” Burns said.

Supervisors approved borrowing $5 million after the Mississippi Legislature passed HB 379, better known as the internet sales tax bill, during the 2020 session. That bill returns millions of dollars of sales tax revenue to cities and counties throughout the state that can be earmarked for roads and bridges.

Board president Trip Hairston said the county expects to receive about $1 million annually from the internet sales tax distributions.

“A lot of counties are starting to do this,” Hairston said. “Before now, a lot of paving came from issuing bonds, which isn’t a great way to go. You’re issued 15-year bonds for paving roads and roads need paving again before the bonds are paid off.

“So what we decided to do was borrow the money and use that internet sale money to service the debt,” he added. “That allows us to pay off the loans as soon as possible. In theory, we could do this every five years or so. I think it’s a much better way to do it and, like I said, a lot of counties are starting to do it this way.”

Burns said the summer paving projects usually begin in July and are completed in November.

“When the bids for each road come in, we’ll take a look and decide which roads we want to pave,” Burns said. “We’ll pave as many roads as we can, but we’ll still need to make some decisions since even with the money we have it won’t cover everything.”

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].