Paving program boosted by $1.7M
DANBURY — City officials are wringing an extra $1.7 million out of the city budget to get an early start on its annual road paving program this spring.
Mayor Mark Boughton announced this month he wants to spend that money — received through a state grant last year — to jump-start paving as soon as the weather warms this spring, instead of waiting for more funding through the city’s next budget this summer.
“The weather’s been good, so we want to get ahead of this year and not wait until we pass the budget,” he said.
That $1.7 million will supplement the $3.7 million the city already set aside for paving in its current budget and give crews more funding to begin drainage and prep work in April and May for paving this summer, instead of its usual August and fall timetable.
“We’ve never been able to really effectively do our entire paving program early in the spring when we really see a lot of our problems,” Public Works Director Antonio Iadarola said. “We spend a lot of money on pothole patching when we really could move right into a paving program ... This is really geared to expedite that program, especially in the springtime as soon as the (asphalt) plants open.”
The city annually allocates about $3 million or more to chip away at a lengthy road paving to do list that would cost many times more than that, in addition to state grants like the one being allocated now.
That $1.7 million mutual aid grant came in after the city finished its budget, though, so it had not yet been formally allocated and was free to be used to help with a number of public works projects, Finance Director David St. Hilaire said. Now the city can categorize it specifically for paving to give public works crews that head start on projects that otherwise might have been put off until the next budget.
Public Works plans to bid for its paving materials over the next two months, which means they will be able to get essentially a four-month lead on their usual schedule and ideally fit more projects in this year, Iadarola said.
Crews and staff have not yet picked which roads will get the upgrade, though, while winter weather continues to wear on the city.
“Those priorities change, but we always evaluate them in the springtime,” he said. “Come springtime, the phone calls will come left and right .. and that’s kind
of where we react. By the end of March, we’ll have a pretty good feel for which roads we’re trying to get to and how far the money’s going to take us.”
City Council members enthusiastically supported the idea during a committee meeting discussion Thursday afternoon and voted to send the budget allocation to the full council for approval next month.
Their only question was whether it was enough money to satisfy the city’s needs.
“It’s never enough, man,” Iadarola laughed.
Last year the city allocated $10.6 million for about 50 capital improvement projects across the city’s 18
departments, including the money for road paving. But it barely scratches the surface of the city’s six-year outlook for the entire capital program that includes hundreds of more projects costing more than $600 million, most of which are completely unfunded today.
“You may not be able to fully fund it, but you still have to do something and then you build on it and build on it,” St. Hilaire said. “Over time you’ll realize you’ve really got something here and that’s what you’re starting to see in some of these areas, not only in Public Works.”