Road funding gap
County will be short $333,385, says report
Members of the Marathon County Infrastructure Committee on Thursday debated how to close a projected 2023 funding gap in county highway maintenance.
Highway commissioner Jim Griesbach told committee members a longrange transportation plan completed by North Central Regional Planning identified a $6.5 million annual funding gap in the county highway maintenance budget in 2043, but that $333,385 of this shortfall will show up as early as next year. He said the county could either raise funds, possibly through a higher wheel tax or borrowing, to fill the gap or, alternatively, allow the Pavement Service Evaluation Rating (PASER) maintenance level on county highways to drift downward. Currently, the county strives to maintain a 7 out of 10 average PASER rating. Another option would be to convince other municipalities to take jurisdiction of stretches of county highways.
Griesbach noted that the county has maintained pavement quality on its 614 miles of county highways between 6.66 and 7.08 between 2005 and 2021.
Supervisor Chris Dickinson, Stratford, said he strongly supported maintenance of county highways but that, rather than raising the wheel tax or going into debt, he wanted the county administrator to find next year’s needed cash somewhere within the county’s $167 million budget.
County board chairman Kurt Gibbs, town of Cassel, however, challenged the supervisor, saying that while he is willing to looking at shifting funding from any other department for road maintenance, it was up to supervisors to identify specific cuts in one department to fund programs in other departments.
“We need to give that direction,” he said.
Gibbs noted that next year’s county budget was already under considerable pressure. The county continues to fund a major rehaul of its antiquated finance system, he said, and will perform a wage study which, he believes, will show the county’s pay scale for various kinds of jobs may lag private market rates by as much as $2 million.
Dickinson responded that as a supervisor he is “given slides” but not a line by line detailed budget and that county administration had its pulse on spending. “The administrator knows the budget,” he said.
Dickinson said county supervisors had a responsibility to find ways to reduce the cost of county government.
In other county highway budget discussion: n Commissioner Griesbach warned committee members that if they let the county’s PASER rating slip, it would cost more in the future to bring back the rating to a 7. He said county roads quickly disintegrate after five years if they are not cared for with crack sealing and slurry seals. Properly cared for roads can typically last 25 years, he said. The cost of delayed routine maintenance is more expensive fixes to get 25 years out of a road’s useful life, he said.
n Committee vice-chairman Craig McEwen, Schofield, announced the committee will hear at its next meeting about the impact of reducing highway maintenance spending on receipt of state General Transportation Aids.
n Griesbach told committee members that the highway maintenance funding gap will quickly increase over the next few years. The gap is projected to increase to $563,928 in 2024 and $801,660 in 2025.
