OXFORD – Replacing the Main Street Bridge in the Village of Oxford won’t be happening any time soon, and local taxpayers could be forced to pick up the estimated $3.2 million price tag.
New York State is taking back major portions of federal aid previously allocated to counties for locally-administered projects, including the 56-year old span that bisects the village.
Six of the seven counties that make up Region 9 of the NYS Department of Transportation learned Monday that $57 million would be held back by the state, leaving $20.7 million over the next five years to cover projects in Otsego, Sullivan, Tioga, Chenango, Delaware, Schoharie, and Broome, including those in the City of Binghamton.
In a reference to the current fiscal crisis on Wall Street and around the globe, Chenango County Department of Public Works Director Randy Gibbon said, “This is nuts. It just shows you how bad New York City financially is. I don’t know what it’s going to do to us if that bridge isn’t funded.”
The Chenango County Department of Public Works repaired cracks in the bridge’s foundation two years ago and fast-tracked it on the work schedule for 2009.
The total allocation de-obligated for Chenango County is $11.6 million. The projects were: the Oxford Main Street Bridge; county Rt. 34 bridge in the Town of Norwich at $1 million; Phase II of county Rt. 35 at $2.4 million; and Phase III of county Rt. 32 at $5 million (which included two bridges).
The only Chenango County project left to be federally funded between now and 2012 is a six-mile stretch of county Rt. 8. Gibbon said the state was forced to allocate federal dollars for that project because a contract for the work had been signed.
Chenango County has already spent $200,000 in engineering fees to plan for the Oxford’s bridge’s replacement.
“We’ve planned around this project. It’s taken years to develop. What if the bridge has to be closed? How are we going to pay for it?” said Gibbon.
Moreover, Gibbon said there would be no money in the state’s budget to make long-awaited improvements to state Rt. 12 in the Town of Greene.
Gibbon said state government take-backs were affecting counties across New York.
“The state gets the money to use on their own state program instead of giving it to local projects,” he said.
New York State receives a federal block grant each year. Of the grant, between 30-34 percent has been allocated for local projects. As of now, the allocation will be cut to 15 percent. Fifteen percent is the amount by law the state has to allocate to local governments.
Commenting on the development, Chenango County Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard B. Decker, R-N. Norwich, said the state’s “billion dollar hole keeps getting bigger.”
Governor David Paterson announced Tuesday that the budget deficit had grown from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion for the current fiscal year. Legislators are being called into an emergency budgeting session after the elections next week.
Chenango County financial leaders hope to keep the 2009 levy at least on par with this year’s less than 1 percent increase. But Decker said he fears more shortfalls at the state level will be passed onto local taxpayers.
“We still have to fund the programs with local funds or they will hold back whatever is left in state aid for other departments. You can’t say no and can’t offer to cut a program back. It all comes down to the local tax dollar.”
“I don’t know where we are going to go with this,” he said. “We have no idea in the world about what’s going to happen after the election. I’m really leery about those guys going back in session.”