County paving

Cape Girardeau County voters approved an additional half-cent sales tax in 2006. Proponents of the new tax said a large chunk of the revenue would be used for roads and bridges and replace the road-bridge property tax. In addition, an equally large portion would go to the sheriff's department.

And that's what has happened. The half-cent tax generates in the neighborhood of $6.2 million a year. With the extra funding, many county residents on gravel roads expected they eventually would be driving on hard-surfaced roads. And upgrades have been made in the sheriff's department. County officials optimistically forecast that more than 50 miles of gravel roads would be paved in five years. Last year the county commission said 35 miles would be hard-surfaced by the end of 2008.

For a lot of reasons, the paving portion of the sales-tax plan, called Proposition 1, has fallen far short of its goals. A little more than five miles of roads were surfaced last year. And this year a little more than 14 miles of county roads have either been topped with hot-mix paving (3.8 miles) or chip-and-seal surfacing (10.4 miles) at a cost of $1.7 million. The cost so far this year has exceeded the paving portion of Proposition 1 revenue through October -- including a balance of nearly a quarter of a million dollars left over from 2007. County officials say the cost overrun will be covered.

Some members of the county's road and bridge advisory commission are concerned that county residents along unpaved roads may be losing faith in the county's paving program. These commission members wonder if additional funding can be added for hard-surfacing projects in attempt to close the gap between the optimistic forecast and the actual amount of hard-surfaced roads.

Commission members are aware -- and county taxpayers need to be -- of some important factors affecting the paving program. The most important is the fact that higher oil prices worldwide are having an impact in Cape Girardeau County. Officials estimate the cost of paving a mile of road has doubled since 2006 when Proposition 1 was passed.

In addition, much of the Proposition 1 revenue is earmarked for expenses other than paving county roads: replacing revenue from the Cape Special Road District and county road and bridge property taxes, revenue sharing with nine incorporated towns in the county, revenue sharing with two major tax-increment-financing projects (Procter & Gamble and Buchheit).

Of the estimated annual revenue of $6.2 million from the Proposition 1 sales tax, approximately one-fourth is designated for paving county roads. Trying chip-and-seal surfacing (less expensive) this year rather than all hot-mix paving (more expensive) was one way the county hoped to stretch the dollars available.

But the slow pace of paving county roads continues to be a question mark for some residents and some members of the road and bridge advisory commission. Answers to questions being raised by both could contribute in a positive way to efforts to find a way to pave more roads.