A plan outlining the status of upgrades to county roads and bridges has been approved by the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

The report updated supervisors on projects in design and construction phases, the funding sources and the estimated construction costs, the bulk of which consists of road resurfacing projects or bridge replacements.

Such infrastructure projects are paid for using either county funds or by the state, via the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s Office of State Aid Road Construction.

Bridges to be replaced using state funds are done so through the state’s Local System Bridge Program.

Officials with the county’s engineering firm, ABMB Engineers Inc., updated supervisors on the two-page plan twice during informal board meetings in January and February. Additionally, supervisors were presented with a detailed list of 328 sections of county roadways that remain high priorities for resurfacing.

It listed the road sections in order of condition, a figure based on inspections completed in January. Ratings criteria included the amount of cracking along vital stretches of the road, overall roughness and the number of vehicles that travel the road each day.

County engineer and state aid coordinator John McKee said Tuesday the process to rate roads for 2006 has begun, with advertisements to take bids expected to run by spring.

Roads that are currently being resurfaced have dropped off the list, as is customary each year the overall road plan is approved. McKee said such miscellaneous factors as increased logging activity in any one area can affect the order of the list from one year to the next.

Fifty-two of the 328 road sections would be funded with state aid money, and the rest would be county-funded.

State aid projects in the design phase include: