Bulletin E-Edition:
Bumpy future for local roads?
Officials weigh their options in face of lost timber payments
By Hillary Borrud / The Bulletin
Published: July 14. 2008 4:00AM PST
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Roads in Deschutes County and Central Oregon will begin to deteriorate in coming years, as the loss of federal timber payments adds to already lagging maintenance efforts. County officials are beginning to consider ways to keep the roads in shape.
Funding for Deschutes County’s road maintenance has been inadequate for a while, said Road Department Director Tom Blust. But the loss of $3.1 million a year in timber payments this fiscal year makes the situation more drastic. One category of road resurfacing projects, asphalt overlay, has only a quarter of the funding it needs, Blust said.
County commissioners had a limited number of ideas for how to pay for maintenance on about 900 miles of county roads. The county may need to take money out of the general fund to maintain roads, said Commissioner Tammy Melton. Commissioner Dennis Luke said another option may be putting a bond before voters to fund work on a specific list of projects.
“To overlay our entire arterial and collector system on a 20-year cycle would require $3.5 million to $4 million annually,” Blust said. “Most roads probably are going to need an overlay sooner than that.”
The amount available for overlay projects this fiscal year is only a fraction of what is needed, at $1 million. This is less than half of the $2.6 million the Road Department budgeted for overlay projects last year, when it had $3.1 million in timber payments available. The county has a five-year list of roads with the highest priority for asphalt overlay, but since the six roads on this year’s list have an estimated price tag of $2.3 million, not all will get done. Next year, Blust said, the overlay budget could drop to $500,000.
The county will continue to put down the same amount of chip seal — an economical way to extend the life of roads — as it has in previous years, but Blust said this does not strengthen roads the way asphalt overlay does. The seal, a thin layer of asphalt topped with rock, is meant to keep moisture out of the road and can create a rough surface for drivers when it is first applied. “Chip seals don’t take care of the big problems, like cracking,” Blust said.
Several attempts to extend the timber payments have failed in Congress, and hopes that they will be renewed are fading. Counties began receiving the subsidies to offset declining revenues from timber harvests, after logging was scaled back to protect spotted owl habitat and other resources in the 1990s. Many counties in the state depend on the program, which expired last month, to fund everything from roads to law enforcement.
Statewide problems
Deschutes County is not alone in its lagging road maintenance. A study released last week by Oregon State University’s Rural Studies Program found that 91 percent of Eastern Oregon counties plan to reduce road maintenance if federal timber payments are not renewed. Deschutes County did not provide information for the study, but Crook and Jefferson counties did. Bruce Weber, a professor of agriculture and resource economics and one of the study’s authors, said this problem existed across Oregon even before the timber payments expired.
“We found that three years ago, about half of the counties felt like they were not able to maintain their roads adequately and last year, 75 percent weren’t able to maintain their roads adequately,” Weber said. “Eventually, I think we’re just going to move to a lower and lower road standard.”
Blust said he did not know when residents would begin to notice the effects of decreasing road maintenance, but a general decline could begin to show up as early as this year, since the county will resurface fewer miles of roads.
Increased costs
Part of the problem for the county Road Department and transportation agencies such as the Oregon Department of Transportation is the increased cost of asphalt overlay, which has nearly doubled from $124,000 per mile in 2005, Blust said during a budget meeting in May. Asphalt prices have risen with the price of oil, which is an ingredient in asphalt.
With costs today of about $225,000 per mile of asphalt overlay, that means Deschutes County can only put down 4 to 4.5 miles countywide in this fiscal year. With last year’s funds, the county was able to resurface 11 to 11.5 miles of road with asphalt overlay, Blust said.
At the same time, the state gas tax, which has not been raised since 1993, is less of a help for state, county and city roads because people are conserving gas, by driving less and using more efficient vehicles, said Dave Thompson, a spokesman for ODOT.
“Even if you’re driving a Prius, you’re doing the same amount of damage to the road,” Thompson said. “But you’re paying way less in gas tax to fix the road.”
Commissioner Mike Daly said the county was falling behind in road maintenance even when the timber payments were available. But he reiterated that he will not vote for proposed system development charges, or SDCs, the county is considering to help expand the county road system to keep up with new development and increased traffic.
County officials have discussed SDCs for several months but have not made a decision on whether to adopt them. Blust has said the SDCs would partially replace funds that the department has used in the past to build infrastructure for new development, and that would free up more county funds for road maintenance. The fees would raise an estimated $2.7 million annually, but the actual amount would be lower until the building industry recovers from the current slowdown, and Blust said the county will still need more maintenance funds to keep up with its workload.
Commissioner Tammy Melton said she is reluctant to impose new taxes on residents in the form of bonds, and the County Commission may have to discuss the use of general fund money for roads.
County Commissioner Dennis Luke said he wants to wait and see what lawmakers do on the state level next year, then decide whether funds need to be raised locally.
“The governor and legislative leadership have promised a transportation bill in the next session, and we need to wait and see … what they’re going to do because if there’s an increase in transportation revenue, then local government gets a share of that,” Luke said.
If the state does not come up with a solution, Luke said the county may need to come up with a list of projects and ask voters to pass a bond to pay for them.
“We used to be very proud of Oregon’s roads, and they’ve continually gone down hill, and now the price tag is really high to bring them up,” Luke said.
Hillary Borrud can be reached at 541-617-7829 or at hborrud@bendbulletin.com.
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