NORWICH – Lawmakers say its time to bite the bullet and budget next year for Chenango County’s highway road maintenance and equipment needs.
Tentative public works department budgets recently presented in two committees call for a local share increase of 9.3 percent for highway administration, maintenance and equipment. The budgets last year totaled approximately $9.5 million of the county’s $76 million annual budget.
“We’ve been cutting back every year. We’re going to have to bite the bullet on this,” City of Norwich Supervisor James J. McNeil said. Finance Committee Chairman Lawrence N. Wilcox, R-Oxford, repeated what town supervisors have been pointing out for years: “Nothing we do affects more people than the highways ... At least people know where their dollars are going.”
County leaders will tap into highway surplus for $862,000 as well as a set-aside machinery surplus fund for $500,000 over a five-year period.
Chenango County Public Works Director Randy Gibbon said the ideal amount for equipment needed to maintain the 63 miles of county roads would be close to a million dollars per year. He said the department had been spending less than half of that.
“It’s not realistic to spend the ideal, but our equipment needs are still there,” he said.
Plans are to purchase two tandem snow plows, a bulldozer, a tractor and four trucks, among other machinery. The public works equipment fund, created in the early 1980s, has been built up with appropriated taxpayer dollars for equipment that was never spent because bids were too high.
In addition to other road and bridge work, the proposed budget calls for six miles, or $400,000, of road construction next year on county Rt. 35 in the Town of Guilford.
Finance Committee member Dennis Brown, D-Pharsalia, said Monday that he was concerned that economic growth in Chenango County couldn’t sustain the DPW’s equipment purchasing plans.
“I don’t think Randy’s department could run any better or any cheaper, but upstate counties have the worst economic development numbers. It’s all over the headlines,” he said.
Chenango County Treasurer William E. Evans said while he is always concerned when lawmakers decide to use surplus to cover expenses, he approved of the plan.
“Randy has been taking substantial cuts for years, and he’s always made his budget and worked within it,” Evans said.
Public Works Committee Chairman Harry W. Conley said the department “needs a goal to go for.”
Gibbon also reviewed snow and ice contracts with highway departments in the following towns: Afton, Bainbridge, Columbus, Greene, Lincklaen, N. Norwich, Sherburne, Otselic and Pitcher. He said he would have liked to enter into an agreement with the Town of Pharsalia Highway Department for plowing county Rt. 42.
“They won’t do it,” he told members of the Public Works Committee last week. “It would eliminate a complete run for us. ... The more we can cut down on response time and expenses, the better it is for everybody.”
“We must find ways to not dead head over roads when we could plow them,” James Bays, D-Smyrna, said.
Homer Smith, D-McDonough, asked Gibbon whether private contractors have been considered for some of the jobs. He said they don’t have the equipment needed and the county would only be able pay state wage rates.
In other department news, Gibbon presented a contract for a shared equipment agreement between the towns and the county. The agreement, created in cooperation with the Association of Town Highway Superintendents, would spend a $225,000 state grant on five pieces of highway maintenance equipment. State Senator Thomas Libous announced the grant for Chenango County nearly a year ago.
Gibbon said the county’s attorney is currently reviewing the contract. It breaks the county into four separate quadrants, requiring each to pay a $250 annual maintenance fee.