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By luther dorr
Mille Lacs County Times
It’s not a high-profile county department like the sheriff’s office, social services or the county attorney’s office.
But if a road doesn’t get plowed by the time a resident thinks it should be, or a pot hole is around for too long, chances are someone at Mille Lacs County Public Works will hear about it.
And a quick look at the department’s budget shows that it is, indeed, a huge part of services the county provides.
It took only a few minutes for county highway engineer Bruce Cochran to make his annual report to the Mille Lacs County Board at its July 28 meeting.
But a closer look at that report gives county residents an idea of the department’s impact.
For example, the are 242 miles of county state-aid highways in the county, 14 more of such roads in municipalities, and 153 miles of other county roads, the majority of them gravel.
The money spent on those roads in 2008 breaks down like this:
•CSAH roads – $1.29 million for maintenance and $2.781 million for construction.
•CSAH roads in cities – $165,000 in maintenance and $166,000 for construction.
•Other county roads – $921,000 for maintenance and $381,000 for construction.
(Construction costs do not include federal funds or bridge bonding funds.)
The department spent about $435,000 last year on plowing and winging snow and about $79,000 for sanding and salting roads.
Plowing of snow figures out to about $2,167 per mile in cities, compared to about $737 per mile on other county roads.
The department is also responsible for routine maintenance such as cleaning snow off bridges, fixing mailboxes if they get knocked down during plowing, mowing roadsides and ditches (1,315 hours, $69,000) spraying weeds, tree removal, maintaining signs and installing new signs, among other duties.
The filling of cracks in the county cost about $62,000 last year and patching pot holes cost about $54,000. Shoulder work on county roads totaled about $38,000 and the cost of repairing culverts was about $15,000.
You get the idea.
The department made allotments of about $155,000 to the county’s 17 townships for road work, the townships then deciding how to spend the money.
Princeton Township, at $17,680, received the most, Borgholm was second at $15,368 and Bogus Brook, Kathio, Greenbush and Milo all received between $14,000 and $15,000.
Last year ended with the department staffed by three fewer employees than when the year began, Cochran writing in his report that the county has carried 14 highway maintenance workers since 2000 but that now there are only 13. There is enough work for 15, he said.
There are county shops in Princeton, Wahkon and Milaca.
The Princeton facility, acquired in 1948 for $7,000 (present value $36,000), has been staffed by two workers but when one retired he wasn’t replaced and now there is one.
Cochran recommends the Princeton facility be closed, as well as the one in Milaca, and a new one be built between Milaca and Pease near Highway 169. That should be done as soon as possible, he said, “to minimize the risk of continuing to occupy the existing buildings,” which he said are in bad condition.
Cochran made other recommendations, including the addition of technology to streamline office and accounting functions, as well as adopting a funding and maintenance program for recreational trails.
He also wants commissioners to budget funds to maintain and improve county roads.
“There are a handful of gravel county roads that have traffic counts high enough to justify paving,” Cochran wrote in the report.
The department budgeted $7.289 million for 2008 and ended up spending $6.518 million.
The budget for 2009 calls for $4.998 million in expenditures.
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