A shrinking pool of money from state road funds will mean less money for Warren County to work with when roads outside Vicksburg are again rated for paving.

Supervisors have approved this year’s update of a four-year plan for road and bridge construction projects, with eight projects awaiting specifications or rights of way. However, money already pledged by the Mississippi Department of Transportation and expected federal dollars for five of the projects barely outpace estimated costs — a fact that has lowered expectations for having all of them done in four years.

Warren County’s share of state funds

• November 2006: $1,569,619.54 share of $118.9 million

• November 2009: $1,092,909.43 share of $82.8 million

Source: Final Four Year Road plans adopted by Warren County Board of Supervisors

“A lot of roads need immediate attention, which, unfortunately, has overrun our money,” Board President Richard George said. “We’ll address as many as we can provided the state functions month-to-month.”

Mississippi’s 82 county governments receive percentages of funds from MDOT’s Office of State Aid Road Construction based mostly on size and population, a system that has been changed very little in recent decades by the Legislature. Warren County’s 1.32 percent cut of unobligated money for 2009-10 shrank to $1,092,909.43, down more than 30 percent in four years.

Replacing two relief bridges on Fisher Ferry Road at the Big Black River and repaving about a mile of roadway tops the list of projects in the design phase, pegged at $1.4 million. Next costly is a reconstruction of Henry Lake Road, at $602,300, followed by new bridges to replace older crossings on Bazinsky and Redbone roads.

Routine paving projects have ground to a halt after the most recent paving project wrapped up in 2007. County-contracted crews paved two roads in 2009, including new surfaces along parts of Eagle Lake Shore and Tucker roads. Both were funded by state aid money, which also paid for new bridges at Adams Street and Redbone, Mallet and Rawhide roads. Bridges at Wood Street, Baldwin Ferry and Avenue D inside the city are in line for funding via the Local System Bridge Program, with money for each outpacing estimates between $13,000 and $40,000.   

Ratings for parts of about 340 county roads — usually completed by the time supervisors OK the four-year list — haven’t been completed by county engineers. The list prioritizes sites for routine paving and is ordered by road conditions. Numerical ratings usually follow a 100-point scale and are determined by how much roads have buckled or cracked in a year’s time and average daily traffic load.

Roads scored below 80 on the 2007 evaluation will be re-rated on their condition, said Brian Robbins of ABMB Engineers Inc., the county’s engineering firm.

Longer-range plans to expand paving and widen parts of Fonsylvania, Burnt House and Tilton Ranch roads are the most ambitious in terms of scope, with each dependent on acquiring rights-of-way from private landowners. 

Transportation funds have so far escaped most of the higher-profile budget talks during the current session of the Legislature. Budget talks among state lawmakers have centered on plugging holes in state spending on education and public safety. A bill to borrow from the state’s rainy day and health care trust funds is before a joint legislative conference.

Consistently falling tax collections due to the recession’s lingering effects will hamper counties’ ability to pave roads and repair bridges for the foreseeable future, Central District Commissioner Dick Hall said.

“It’s about decreasing revenues and rising costs,” Hall said. “Counties are strapped just like the state is. There’s not a lot of flexibility in State Aid — it’s either there or it isn’t.”

Other areas in early stages of construction include replacing the bridge at Cherry Street and Glass Bayou and at the entrance to the Port of Vicksburg at E.W. Haining Road. Each is financed by a federal Community Development Block Grant, with the new port bridge made possible with Katrina-related disaster recovery money. Another Katrina-related project is one to clean drainage bayous inside the city.

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com