Survey says county roads receive insufficient funding

Published 9:43 am Tuesday, July 1, 2008

County roads across Minnesota make up 45,000 miles of the transportation system and one-third of the state’s entire network. Yet, three-quarters of county engineers statewide said roads and bridges deteriorated in the past 10 years due to rising costs and public underinvestment, according to a survey released Thursday by Minnesota 2020.

More than 90 percent of county engineers said the recent transportation funding bill passed by state Legislators in February isn’t enough to meet transportation goals, the study states.

Freeborn County Engineer Sue Miller said the results of the study “really weren’t a surprise to most county engineers.”

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With a decline in revenue and a loss of buying power, she said, many counties are having difficulties keeping up with needed maintenance and repairs.

The consumer use of gasoline has gone down recently for the first time since the 1970s. This loss of income, Miller said, coupled with the gas tax increase has caused funding to level out. That means no excess funds to make repairs or improvements.

“We’re not gaining,” she said. “We’re still going backward. We may not be going backward as fast, but we’re still going backward.”

In Freeborn County, according to Miller, the county roads continue to hold on, in part because the county pursues federal grants and outside funding. The county is responsible for maintaining 640 miles of roads within Freeborn County.

“Overall, we’re not seeing a huge impact, yet,” Miller said.

Over the last five years the county Board of Commissioners more than doubled the property tax levy that goes toward roads and bridges, she said. The commissioners understand the needs of the infrastructure and how important it is, especially in an agricultural county.

In 2004, 23 percent of the county Highway Department budget was supported by the levy. In 2008, 40 percent of the budget came from taxpayers. According to Miller, the state and federal government have not kept up their shares of funding.

The Minnesota 2020 report found local property taxes dedicated to roads and bridges doubled in the past 10 years to $1.6 billion in 2006. Seventy percent of engineers said property taxes were increased to pay for county infrastructure.

The county doesn’t have the resources to support the road and bridge system the way it should. Miller said her budget is averaging $3 million to $4 million a year short of what is needed to maintain the current system at the existing capacity.

That shortfall doesn’t include any improvements needed, just maintaining the current system, “which in most cases is inadequate for today’s traffic,” Miller said.

Maintenance has been reduced to two-thirds of the quantity that used to get completed within the county, she said. Seal coating is a piece of preventative maintenance that tends to go by the wayside, according to Miller, because the cost has doubled with the rising price of crude oil.

Eventually, such underfunding can lead to the inability to maintain roads because preventative maintenance weren’t kept up.

The Minnesota 2020 study found county engineers and highway departments had to close roads, reduce road maintenance and snow plowing as well as pursue “unprecedented borrowing.” Thirty percent of engineers issued bonds to pay for infrastructure.

In 2005 or 2006, Miller said, areas of County Road 30 were returned to gravel from pavement because it was an area that was difficult to maintain and had low traffic.

According to the study, 4 percent of engineers surveyed returned roads to gravel or dirt from pavement.

Miller said if funding doesn’t improve, Freeborn County could see eight to 10 miles a year return to gravel from pavement.

Part of the problem is the decrease in gas revenue that goes to pay for infrastructure work, but the cost keeps increasing, she said.

There hasn’t been a gas tax increase since 1988, according to Miller, and the recent gas tax increase won’t be completely phased in for a few years. Unfortunately, she said, the tax increase comes when prices are at an all-time high.