Wilkens received only two bids for the annual paving contract and Barrett came in just $8,983 below the John R. Jurgensen Company.
Last year the paving contract cost $8.37 million and covered about 35 miles, that’s a 6% cost reduction and 12% increase in miles paved.
Wilkens has bemoaned the sky-high construction costs for the past several years, which impacts how much work they can get done. He said the market is getting better, “it’s coming down a little bit, the paving is, thank God.”
Wilkens’ office designs, builds and maintains 266 miles of roadway, 402 bridges, and 870 culverts. Cities in Butler County manage their own road maintenance and paving programs, but Wilkens’ office bids and supervises township road projects, and the townships pay for the work.
Other forces beyond local control could impact how many roads can be resurfaced in the future. There is a grassroots campaign gathering steam statewide to eliminate property taxes, which is the main revenue source for townships. If the effort is successful township revenues would dwindle to next to nothing in 2028.
Of the nine townships working with Wilkens to pave roads this year, Liberty Twp. is spending the most by far. The township will spend nearly $1.6 million resurfacing 30 streets. West Chester Twp. came in second with a $898,414 paving bill to address 19 roads.
Liberty Twp. Trustee Tom Farrell told the Journal-News they are aware there is a potential threat to their finances and they are “looking at Plan Bs” but “we have to do what we feel is in the best interest of our residents and businesses, both short and long term.”
“Obviously there’s always concern abut the revenues needed to support our residents, we feel as though we run a very lean machine and don’t have a whole lot of room for changes, it’s why we contract with the county for roads to save money and use the economy of scale,” Farrell said. “At this point it has to be business as usual, we cannot risk the safety of our residents worried about what may come, we have to focus on what needs to be done now.”
The commissioners have been helping with the effort to keep the county’s ground transportation system in good working order. In 2023, they allocated $10 million of their $74.4 million American Rescue Plan Act windfall over two years to improve county and township roads.
They allocated $1.25 million for county roads, a $225,000 base for each township plus additional stipends based on the number miles the jurisdictions maintain for a total of $5 million in 2023 and 2024. With the additional allocations, the range was $459,034 for West Chester Twp. to $236,597 for tiny Lemon Twp. The county maintains 266 miles, West Chester 227 and Lemon Twp. 11.
They have continued Wilkens’ $5 million annual allocation for capital projects and the engineer said most of it will be used to finish bridge projects begun last year.
“Right now it it’s mostly in bridges, still in bridges,” he said. “We’re working through that list.”
BUTLER COUNTY CAPITAL PROJECTS
Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkens will give the commissioners a full report on all of the capital projects he has planned on March 17. Last year his budget was $24.4 million to fix 14 bridges and 22 culverts, repave roads, install a new roundabout and other road maintenance.
This year he said he plans to spend roughly $39 million including: $13 million worth of bridge work, $9 million for new roundabouts, $5.5 million on roadways and the paving work.
“It’s going to be a pretty good year,” he said.
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