Package Will Provide A Start To Help Solve Road Problems

Staff Writer

Drive along most any of Van Zandt’s county roads and you will eventually hear it, the loud, jarring "ka-thud" of your vehicle’s wheels running through a large pothole.

Van Zandt County’s four precinct commissioners hear it — and subsequently hear about it from citizens — all the time.

Last week, the four commissioners and county judge Rhita Koches made what they feel is an important step toward ridding the county of a longstanding reputation for horrible roads. The court unanimously approved certificates of obligation over 15 years for $6.375 million, $6 million of which is specifically earmarked for major road repairs and improvements.

The decision was not an impulsive one, Koches said.

"This has been a long time coming. There is no question about that," she said. "I would say it has been a long process. We actually started to first talk about this last summer during county budget preparations, whether we could do it, when we could do it and for how much money."

Precinct 2 Commissioner Virgil Melton Jr., who began his first term in January of last year, put the road repair issue atop his list of goals.

"When I got onto the commissioners’ court, I knew right away we had to do something. After I evaluated my roads, I said we were going to have to figure out a way, because there was no way we can fix these roads under our present tax system," Melton Jr. said.

The county is limited on how much it can raise property taxes without a tax rollback. As Koches explained, part of the delay in taking action on the roads issue came from debt the county was already trying to pay back.

"I don’t think it has been an option until just now. We would never have voted for it if we were still borrowing money through tax anticipation notes. Maybe it was something we needed to do much earlier than this, but I don’t think the timing was right with the rest of the county’s financial picture," she said.

At the start of this year, the picture finally became bright enough to go for a comprehensive funding package for road improvements. The bonus came when the commissioners’ court learned they do a 15-year repayment schedule for just 3.39 percent interest, far below the 4.4 percent first estimated in February.

"The court felt it was more than worth doing that with the interest rate we got," Koches said. She added that the effect would be a 2- to 2 1/2-cent increase in county property taxes toward the county’s interest and sinking fund.

"On the other hand, we don’t yet know what the effective tax rate will be on our M and O (maintenance and operations), and as property valuations increase, the M and O decreases," Koches said, "but we won’t know until another month or two when those property valuations come back."

Although $6 million sounds like a lot of money, it will only be enough to deal with the worst of the county roads throughout the four precincts, Melton Jr. noted.

"Really, $6 million is pretty much a Band-Aid, but it is enough that we can do some good things with it," Melton Jr. said.

However, he noted that after developing a comprehensive road repair and improvements plan, the portion of the $6 million Precinct 2 will receive is going to be "about $2-3 million short" of what is needed to fix 104 of the approximately 330 miles of county roads in the precinct.

As Precinct 1 Commissioner Ricky LaPrade noted in last week’s meeting, the money would not buy what it could have bought in materials just three years ago.

"Oil has tripled in price, which means we can do a third of the work," LaPrade explained, adding that a higher volume of traffic and heavier traffic on county roads have compounded the problem.

"We’re not going to be able to totally rebuild a lot of roads, but we can go in and fix some of the worst spots on them," he said.

Koches agreed, saying, "The bottom line is we will not accomplish what we could have three or five years ago. But again, it’s hard to justify doing something like this at a time when we were already borrowing money to pay the light bill."

However, she explained that this money, which should be available beginning April 30, would not entail $6 million of patching work.

"Patching is to fill potholes, and this is to go for actual road improvements. That could mean going in and reclaiming it (road), laying it back down and totally re-top the road. The commissioners could possibly seal coat some roads," Koches said.

The money from the certificates of obligation will be divided among the four precincts just as their regular funds, based on total miles of county road within each precinct, she said.

"Also, we are working on some process where that money will not be lumped into regular (road and bridge) funds. It will be spent specifically for road improvement project work, not for everyday things like replacing tires on a dump truck or patching holes," Koches said.

Determining which roads will get a serious makeover during the next two or three years will require prioritizing them based on traffic and current condition, Melton Jr. said.

"It was a hard decision just to go over 330 miles and determine what roads come first," he said. "You have to sit down and be objective, but you have to make those hard decisions based on the amount of traffic and the amount of population on each road."

He added that many people who travel county roads every day would be glad to see some changes for the better.

"I’m so glad that we can at least start to fix some of our worst roads. People have a hard time just getting out to the state highways," Melton Jr. said.

"Nobody is naïve enough to think this is going to fix everything, but it’s a start and it is more than we have seen in the past," Koches said.