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Home > Blogs > Middletown News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > May > 28 > Entry
An answer to a reader’s question, Part 1
A few weeks back, a reader e-mail some questions to me about the city’s street budget and the LED traffic light conversion.
City officials forwarded me the answers to those questions. I am posting the questions regarding the city’s street budget to this blog today and will post the other answers in the next few days.
This information is public record and anyone can contact the city offices to obtain this information for their review.
Question 1: What’s the city’s annual budget for street repair/improvements and how much of that is marked for repaving?
Answer: The City’s capital budget (not including enterprise funds such as water and sewer) receives approximately $1 million each year from a dedicated 1 mill of property tax. Of the revenues collected, more than 80 percent is typically allocated to roadwork each year. The remaining funds are allocated to parks and buildings improvements, which are also supported by this fund.
The 2008 capital budget is $1.8 million, including $450,000 in state funding and $550,000 in carryover funding from 2007. The street portion of this year’s budget makes up 83 percent of the total allocation.
The 2008 street maintenance budget is $1.78 million. This funding supports the personnel, equipment and materials required to maintain the 600-plus lane miles of streets, including utility patches, pothole repair, street sweeping, guardrail repair, large trash and dead animal pickup, all signage and road closures, snow and ice control, street markings, and shoulder (berm) repairs.
Question 2: When was the last time a street in Middletown was repaved without ‘other’ improvement reasons?
Answer: Typically, inspections are performed on the water and sewer mains, drainage system, and concrete associated with a street to be resurfaced so that all necessary repairs can be made at that time. This process extends the life of the roadway and, hopefully, eliminates future utility patches on a new street. Therefore, paving projects almost always include other improvements to the associated infrastructure.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Middletown
Comments
By Mike Presta
May 29, 2008 6:28 AM | Link to this
Sorry, Mr. Richter, but I must dispute the figures you obtained! The figures for 2007 (the latest year that I have at my fingertips) show that $2.94 MILLION was budgeted for “routine street maintemamce and traffic control”! The bulk (about 75%) of these funds came from items such as the gas taxes, county vehicle tax, County license renewal fees, motor vehicle permissive tax, municipal motor vehicle tax, and 1 mil of the property tax. Where it goes, I cannot say. This amounts to at least $2.4 MILLION that, by statute, must be spent WITHIN the RIGHTS-OF-WAY of our city’s streets. I would think that the 2008 numbers are similar. Perhaps you can tell us where it went/is going?By socrates
May 29, 2008 9:52 AM | Link to this
In other words Mr. Richter, the city doesn’t do repairs, awaiting the time when they can do everything at once? What really happens is the repairs are not made, because the city wants the potholes to destroy cars so citizens will be more inclined they think, to pass a tax levey. That’s why the city just puts orange cones out for a year or two, instead of doing the responsible service and fix the problem. That would defeat the purpose though, because the city mentality is to wait and make no repairs until the levey is passed. If it wasn’t for the outrage on the present potholes, the city would not have even fixed Breiel and the other damaged roads. How long is the orange cones going to stay in the sewer drain on Breilel after the past year?