Review of road tax program show almost all promises have been kept or are on track to be

When Cape Girardeau County voters in 2006 were being asked to approve a new sales tax to improve county roads and raise salaries in the sheriff's department, quite a few promises were made.

The biggest promise was that almost 55 miles of roads would be paved by the end of 2012. Another promise was that the turnover rate among deputies would be dramatically reduced and more deputies would patrol rural areas.

That's not all. The expected revenue would, at first, be more than the sheriff's department needed and the county commission promised that surplus funds would go to paving. A property tax to support road work would be eliminated. And a Road and Bridge Advisory Board would be created and listened to when decisions about policies and which roads to pave were being made.

When the vote took place in August 2006, public skepticism about promises from the county commission was clear in the 131-vote margin by which voters enacted the tax. A review of the tax program and the promises made to sell it show that almost all those promises have been kept or are on track to be kept.

Since the first dollars arrived in February 2007, the tax has raised $15.89 million. Of that amount, $4.1 million has been spent on or allocated to paving. That includes $736,310 that was a surplus in the amounts allocated to the sheriff's department.

The most important, and most visible, promise was the paving program. The list of roads to be paved changed after the Road and Bridge Advisory Board conducted a review of which roads fit the county's paving policies. So far, 19.55 miles of roads have been or are being newly paved or given a new layer of asphalt. Another 10.37 miles of roads have a hard chip-seal surface, part of an experiment to determine whether that method is a cost-effective alternative for some locations.

During 2009, 9.74 miles of roads are under contract. If that pace can be sustained for three more years -- and county highway engineer Scott Bechtold said he believes it can -- about 59 miles of new hard surface will be in place.

The biggest issue as the paving program moved ahead has been easements. The road policy requires each property owner along a road to be paved to sign paperwork giving the county 30 feet of easement from the center of the road. That amount, a total right of way 60 feet wide, allows for a 28-foot-wide road with shoulders and properly contoured drainage ditches, Bechtold said.

A single holdout among property owners can stall a road project. "We recognize it has issues," Bechtold said. "It is not perfect, but it is workable. I anticipate easements will continue to come in. When people look at what we have delivered and see what they like, there will be more interest in helping provide easements."

Enough easements are in hand to sustain the program through 2012, Bechtold added.

One obstacle to keeping the program going is the cost of materials, especially asphalt, Bechtold said. Grading and paving each mile of road costs the county about $200,000.

The cost of asphalt peaked at $72 a ton last fall. This year, the price is $59.15 per ton. When the road plan was being proposed, asphalt was available for less than $40 per ton. For asphalt alone, the average price per mile for this year's work is $131,089; when the plan was being proposed, Bechtold estimated that asphalt paving cost $96,000 per mile.

On the sheriff's side of the ledger, raises of $6,392 for road deputies and $4,705 for jailers and communication staff, implemented in 2007, have virtually eliminated turnover, said Sheriff John Jordan. Before the tax, Jordan reported turnover rates as high as 29 percent.

"It is just a positive to the highest degree as far as I am concerned," Jordan said.

While those deputies have been cruising the roads in sleek Dodge Chargers, paid for in part with the sales tax, Jordan said the vehicles are part of a regular replacement routine and cost less initially, and use less fuel, than the Fords his deputies drove previously.

Setting aside 15 percent

One adjustment has been made in the use funds allocated to the sheriff that are unspent at the end of each year -- 15 percent of the sheriff's allocation is set aside as a permanent fund to support salaries in case sales tax revenue runs dry.

And with the recession, tax revenue is down 2 percent so far this year compared to 2008. Jordan doesn't expect to use that permanent fund this year, but it will sustain his department if lean times continue, he said. Last year, he said, the fund accumulated about $220,000.

"My goal is not to dip into it except for personnel costs, period, and only if the system gets stressed," Jordan said. "The way we are looking at it, with 3 percent growth in salaries, is that it would take that fund years to be tapped into."

The two taxes eliminated by the sales tax supported regular operations of the County Highway Department and the Cape Special Road District. Each has a claim on the tax revenue for an amount equal to what the property taxes would have raised if they were still in effect.

In the Cape Special Road District, the effect has been about a 25 percent increase in annual funding. When the district was funded with property taxes, state law allocated a 20 percent share to the county road fund. The result is that the district has about $1.6 million in reserves, district engineer Mark Phillips said. The money will be used to replace subpar bridges in the district, which is responsible for roads in unincorporated areas adjacent to Cape Girardeau.

The district is also using hot-mix asphalt to overlay roads, an improvement over the cold-mix process used previously.

"The benefit, and you are just starting to see it, is the bridges and improved roadways," Phillips said. "That is a huge benefit to taxpayers, and I think it is just starting to show up at this point."

Review of paving policy

To make the road program more responsive to the public, and not just landowners motivated to provide the county with easements, a re-examination of the county's paving policies is underway. The Road and Bridge Advisory Board is taking on that task, said chairman Larry Payne, and will hold meetings around the county to gather information.

While the advisory board has no direct power over the paving program, its work resulted in the current waiting list for paving. But the board's push for more chip-and-seal work was stymied this year when newly elected county Commissioner Paul Koeper, an engineer by trade, objected. Koeper wanted to see how last year's work held up. In some instances it is working, he said, but in other cases it is wearing badly.

Both Payne and Koeper agree that some of the long-established policies may be standing in the way of obtaining easements and getting important roads paved.

The 60-foot easement requirement and the first-come, first-served aspects of the policies are coming under the most scrutiny.

"There are just a lot of questions not addressed by that policy," Payne said. "Do you treat a road that has 40 cars a day on it the way you would treat a road that has 200 cars a day?"

Koeper said that establishing priorities -- primary, secondary and tertiary designations for each road -- would allow heavily traveled roads to be moved up the list. Some roads from each group would be paved each year, but those considered tertiary would wait the longest, he said.

No road currently on the list for paving will be delayed, Koeper said.

Overall, the policy changes are some time off, both Payne and Koeper said. "We are after something that makes sense to the taxpayers of Cape Girardeau County," Payne said. "We are nowhere close to being ready to say we are going to implement a new policy."

rkeller@semissourian.com 388-3642

Breakdown of Proposition 1 money

In August 2006, Cape Girardeau County voters narrowly approved Proposition 1, a sales tax increase to pay for county roads and to support operations of the sheriff's department. The tax also replaced existing property taxes dedicated to county roads. A breakdown of how much money has been raised and how it was allocated:

Proposition 1 revenue

Year, receipts

2007 $4.92 million

2008 $6.27 million

2009* $4.70 million

total $15.89 million

Proposition 1 allocations

Allocation 2007 2008 2009*

Cape Special Road District $1.61 million $1.65 million $1.71 million

County Road and Bridge Dept. $1.25 million $1.28 million $1.3 million

Jackson $105,582 $109,807 $110,209

Hard surface paving $925,659 $1.48 million $978,889

Sheriff's department $925,659 $1.48 million $978,889

All others $50,499 $234,232 $184,982

Note: $736,310 in surplus funds allocated to the sheriff's department transferred to hard surface paving fund.

*2009 figures represent revenue through September and projected allocations from this year's receipts.

SOURCE: Cape Girardeau County treasurer's office

Pertinent address:

1 Barton Square, Jackson, Mo.