Officials want state to help fix roads
Town officials want the state to restore highway aid that they say has helped municipalities do more than patch roads.
Town officials want New York state to restore highway aid that they say has helped municipalities do more than just patch roads.
At a Town Board meeting last week, town Highway Superintendent Robert Gallagher said there are questions whether two programs that provide about $33,000 to the town are at risk of ending under the proposed 2019-20 state budget.
“To our town, it is especially very important,” Gallagher said. “That’s the only way I can get things done. Other than that, it’s you’re just going to piecemeal, you’re going to do basically one or two projects a year and you’re actually going to just patch roads.”
A report on town funding from the 2017-18 budget showed $79,062 from the state Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program, which is expected to continue.
However, officials are uncertain whether $14,930 in state Extreme Winter Recovery aid to the town will continue, and have been told that another $18,046 in Pave-NY funding has been discontinued.
Gallagher said the two at-risk programs help finance enough paving work to fulfill requirements for the town to continue receiving funding from the program that will remain. He said the town needs to pave about 3.6 miles of road per year, representing 10 percent of the total town inventory, to receive the aid.
He said the potential loss of the other grants represents about two-thirds of the funding needed for a typical town road paving project.
“I’ve gotten two bids ... for Parkcrest Drive, and they both came in right around $50,000,” he said. “That’s a small community road, but that definitely needs to be done. It’s to that point where we patched it upon patch upon patch. This time it needs to be paved.”
Representatives of state Sen. Jennifer Metzger, D-Rosendale, said Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program funding is proposed to be unchanged in the 2019-20 state budget and the Pave-NY funding was part of a five-year program that ended in the 2018-19 budget.
In an email, Metzger said the Extreme Winter Recovery Program is part of budget negotiations for the coming year.
“The Extreme Winter Recovery Program has provided important supplementary funding for our town highway departments since 2015,” she said. “The extreme temperature swings we are experiencing this winter are highly damaging to our roads, and with climate change, we can expect these kinds of extreme weather events to continue. I am advocating for continuing to fund this $65 million program, which was not included in the executive budget.”
“The Extreme Winter Recovery Program has provided important supplementary funding for our town highway departments since 2015,” she said. “The extreme temperature swings we are experiencing this winter are highly damaging to our roads, and with climate change, we can expect these kinds of extreme weather events to continue. I am advocating for continuing to fund this $65 million program, which was not included in the executive budget.”