Group Backs Road Work

Plans Use Reserve Money

Friday, February 8, 2013

— Benton County officials gave their blessing Thursday to a six-year plan to expedite work on roads and bridges by using reserve money to supplement revenue from a state sales tax for transportation improvement.

The Quorum Court’s Transportation Committee voted unanimously to send the plan to the Finance Committee for consideration. The next meeting of the Finance Committee is March 5.

At A Glance

Road Plans

Scott Stober, Benton County’s public services administrator, said the Road Department is developing a policies and procedures manual to help the public understand how the department works. Stober said the information will be posted on the county website and include a form that can be filed out to alert the department of potholes or other problems. The Road Department also plans to post its projected work schedule, along with a map showing proposed projects.

Source: Staff Report

Scott Stober, public services administrator, and Cindy Jones, road coordinator for the Road Department, gave the justices of the peace a look at anticipated road work with normal funding and an expanded work program using the annual $1.2 million projected from the state’s half cent sales tax.

According to Stober and Jones, the normal road work budget is about $1.7 million. With that money and good weather, the county would expect to do 15.4 miles of asphalt paving, 29.5 miles of single chip and seal paving, and 12.8 miles of double chip and seal paving for 57.7 miles total.

Taking the existing manpower and equipment, Stober and Jones estimated the county could do up to 90 miles of paving during the normal 32 weeks of suitable weather from April through November, if enough money was available. The state sales tax revenue must be used for road work or related costs.

If Benton County worked with the anticipated the tax revenue over a 10-year plan, Stober and Jones said, the county could do an extra 15 miles of paving each year and have about $394,000 available for bridge work.

Officials have opted to consider accelerating the road work by increasing money transferred from the general fund to the road fund to essentially make the entire 10 years of tax revenue available in six years. That plan will provide an extra 25 miles of paving per year and make $655,000 available for bridge work in each of the six years. At the end of the six years, the county will reduce its annual transfer to the Road Department to recover that money in the last four years of the sales tax.

Justice of the Peace Joel Jones calculated the accelerated plan would require the county to increase its annual transfer to the Road Department by about $900,000 for the six years of the plan.

“The way this works is the tax money goes to the Road Department.” said Justice of the Peace Kurt Moore. “After six years we reduce our transfer to the Road Department but the tax money is still coming in. The hard part, after six years, is going to be banking that money instead of spending it.”

Stober said the Road Department developed its plans based on the equipment and manpower now available, with no increases needed to do the additional work. He said he won’t ask for any additional employees.

“We’ve built this around not doing that,” Stober said. “We can handle what we have planned with what we’ve got.”

Justice of the Peace Kevin Harrison said he’s been very pleased with the increasing professionalism. He said his own observations of the work done and a decline in constituent complaints about roads both indicate the Road Department can do the work proposed.

“I’m comfortable with the accelerated program,” Harrison said.