Seegmiller warns of county road problems

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

RANDOLPH, Utah.  August 7, 2019.  Ed Seegmiller, who has been a city manager and a water district manager in small towns in Texas and California, moved to Meadowville  full time in 2014.  Since then he has been looking at road budgets and road construction.  He noted that the road budget is the largest expense in the Rich County Budget.

The last two years the budget has been flat yet there is enormous growth happening and the county may not be preparing for it. It may be important to realize there must be change, he said and added, "there is a complete new set of people moving to Rich County who are not rural people and they will want things they enjoy in the cities including good roads even if they are dirt and gravel roads."

Many of the roads are well built with crowns and wear well but many are not.  The roads represent the county like a banner on the wall he said.

  

The increased traffic and truck travel means that the quality of gravel needs to be improved and perhaps the design and specifications for the county roads. “Look to the future,” he said.  “Plan for the growth and incrementally increase taxes. Have a Dust Prevention Program.  Put the mag water on the whole road not just part. The roads will need less maintenance and in the long run you can save on labor and fuel costs and have a longer lasting road.” 

Commissioner Bill Cox said that many of the county roads are 40 to 50 years old and are not designed to current requirements. Cox said that spring breakup of frozen gravel roads is the cause of most of the problems with the roads.  “Everything we do is magnified by the winter issues.  Our gravel pits don’t meet specs so that we have to get gravel from outside the county.  Our roads are 40 to 50 years old, so as we look at improvements as we did on the East Side of the lake we are faced with bad design which means that we have to start from scratch.”

The entire county budget is $1.3 million, nearly $1 million is for the roads.  Cox said, “We are losing the value of centrally assessed taxpayers .  We actually lose money even though our valuation have gone up, because the centrally assessed corporations are usually given big waivers on their tax debt leaving the taxpayers and counties to support the corporations needs from their budgets.

The roads are funded with a portion of the gas taxes given to the county, but cars are getting more efficient so the gas tax money funding is going down.  Cox explained.

"A good share of the road budget goes to snow plowing.  We have been proactive, we have purchased a roller and a road grader."

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“Each year there you should put an increase in your road budget,” Seegmiller replied, “ the decay of road system and bridges is a major responsibility,  and though the commissioners want to keep taxes low you may need to raise taxes to keep the infrastructure solid.”