Time to Plan for Roads
I had planned to do a deep dive into Affordable housing today, but I want to do a bit more research... so at the last minute, I am calling an audible.
We are going to chat about roads today.
Specifically... the plan for them.
What is that plan you ask? I have no idea. That is why we are here.
A few weeks ago we heard a presentation from Mott Macdonald that showed we were around $714 million behind in resurfacing our roads. That is a huge chunk of money to have to make up for.
So how are we going to do that?
Well part of the Mott Macdonald contract is that we are getting access to software that allows us to input various variables and the software will calculate the best option to take.
For instance, we can input $10 million and have it show us the best way to utilize those funds. We can limit it to only residential roads and it will map out the best roads to pave using that $10 million. Maybe it is preservation... maybe it is rebuilding a section.. and so on.
The software will tell use various options and how to make our dollars go the furthest based on our current road conditions.
Why do I bring all this up?
Because the BOCC is having their annual strategic planning retreat in January. This is the perfect time to lay out a plan to address the roads and show the citizens what exactly that plan looks like.
Here would be my vision on how this looks.
Staff tests various funding scenarios and comes back with plans for each of them and shows them to the board.
For instance:
1) At $10 million in funding, we can address X number/miles of roads.
2) At $15 million, it would be X number/miles
3)At $20 million it would be X number/miles
and so on.
Maybe it is not all resurfacing. Maybe some is preservation. Maybe some is rebuilding. Some may be residential, some may be collector roads like South Apopka or Rock Crusher. The software will decide the best way to utilize that set of funds, but let us see what it looks like at various numbers.
The point is, currently, citizens and commissioners have no idea what is being done with the road resurfacing funds. I bet if I were to ask them this morning about it, they would all be able to tell me they spent $16 million or so this year on roads, but I doubt many of them could answer how many miles were addressed.
However, showing an overall plan and how many miles of roads will be addressed with various funding scenarios, people can start to see numbers. They can start to buy in on the process. Maybe people are willing to let the county spend more money if it means more roads are being addressed and they can see exactly where those funds will be going.
It is something everyone, including BOCC, can see.
But, more importantly, as they continue to consider the sales tax, it will allow people to see the plan for those funds.
"This is what it looks like with $25 million each year from a sales tax".
Then staff can start to show what roads look like 2 years, 5 years, 10 years from now with those funds.
"All these roads that are currently in poor condition, will be addressed with $X funding per year".
This retreat is basically a goal setting retreat. By making the roads a focus, they can build off of that.
They can discuss each road option and then decide model works best for the upcoming year(s).
Then staff can start to build off of that. They know they need to spend $X on roads to hit their goal and then can plan the rest of the budget around that. That likely requires cuts here and there to other things, but they know that in January and can begin to plan for it.
Doing that in January makes it a lot easier to plan the next budget than trying to do it at other budget hearings throughout the year. What often happens is the commissioners will ask for cuts here or there during budget hearings throughout the year. That makes it harder to plan when it is done in the middle of budget season.
Deciding this major piece in January helps staff plan the rest of the budget... but also let's us see their goal for roads for the upcoming year.