June 10, 2021 at 1:12 p.m.
Cass Highway Department receives approval to shift funding
He first presented these proposals to the board at a special meeting in August. Tuesday, the board approved his request.
The county has been levying $850,000 annually in recent years to pave all county roads currently carrying over 150 vehicles per day. Those roads are numbered 100 or higher and are ineligible for state aid funding.
With traffic counts stabilized, there no longer are additional county roads carrying enough traffic volume to warrant paving. The board's action Tuesday will permit Enblom to use that $850,000 annual allocation during the next five years to resurface state aid roads (those numbered lower than 100).
There currently are 15 state aid roads designated as "poor" condition. The county's annual allotment from state aid would have paid only for resurfacing eight of those "poor" quality roads in the next five years. By using the $850,000 local levy, all poor roads will be resurface in the next five years.
Cass has been levying $284,000 annually to put into a capital improvement fund. Tuesday's board action will permit Enblom to add that money to the $250,000 already levied annually to purchase new highway equipment.
It does not allow for buying any type of equipment the county does not already own, but does permit Enblom to replace existing equipment with newer models before the old ones reach a point of needing high cost repairs.
Purchasing even one new motor grader with a plow, which used to cost about $100,000, now costs $246,000. That would have used almost the entire existing $250,000 budget. New tandem trucks cost about $140,000 each. Backhoes run about $85,000.
Cass stores and services motor graders and trucks at several satellite garages around the county to keep them close to the areas where they grade gravel roads and plow snow. Most garages were built 30 years or more ago. They are poorly insulated and inefficient to heat.
The county has discussed with the state the possibility of building a new shared garage at Pine River when the four-lane Highway 371 improvement goes through that area. With the timetable for that improvement moved farther into the future, Enblom is looking at replacing other satellite garages first.
Tuesday, the board authorized him to obtain a quote from Widseth, Smith and Nolting to design a new county garage at Remer. It would be located on state property where there currently is a state satellite garage.
Enblom said the newer state garage at that site cost half as much to heat as the county's garage there. By co-locating on the same site, Enblom said the county and state will be able to share a salt/sand storage shed. The county will be able to use the state's wash bay for its equipment.
The board approved using up to $500,000 from the county capital improvement fund to build the new Remer county garage.
In other highway business Tuesday, the board approved designating between 20 and 25 miles of county state aid highways paralleling the Mississippi River as part of a national bicycle trail system running south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Cass's roads already have paved shoulders. The only likely expense for the county would be to provide signs designating the roads as part of the trail system. Many of these roads already are part of the Great River Road highway system.
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