Tired of bumpy streets? 2 Cape tax measures would put $2.5 million annually toward repairs

The City of Cape Girardeau could spend $2.5 million annually on street repairs if voters approve a capital improvement tax on the August ballot and a transportation tax on next April’s ballot, city officials said Monday.

A capital improvement tax measure on the August ballot would funnel half a million dollars annually into street repairs for 15 years, city manager Scott Meyer said.

City officials are seeking voter approval to extend the capital improvement sales tax and the transportation trust fund tax. The latter tax would be a five-year tax.

City council members and city staff have increasingly focused on pumping money into street repairs rather than constructing new streets.

“We are taking care of what we have,” Meyer said.

Mayor Bob Fox said transportation sales tax revenue is not enough to keep up with all the streets needing to be repaved.

“We have just kind of gotten farther and farther behind,” Fox said.

Spending $2.5 million a year on street repairs would allow the city to catch up on needed street improvement over a period of years, he said.

“You’ve got to spend the money,” he added.

Cape Girardeau Public Works director Stan Polivick said many of the city’s streets are 30 years of age or older.

“There are a lot of roads that have bad spots,” he said.

Even so, Polivick said a national inspection standard, used by the public works staff, grades city streets at 77, on average, on a 100-point scale.

Polivick said that is better than many other cities, but he and other city officials said it is important to address deteriorating pavement now rather than later.

The city now spends more than $1.5 million a year on contracted repairs to concrete and asphalt streets, Polivick said. About $850,000 of that is budgeted for replacement of crumbling concrete pavement.

Fox said the condition of city streets is a constant topic residents raise with council members, he said.

Over 15 years, the capital improvement tax would generate $7.5 million for street upgrades, according to city officials.

Meyer said the transportation sales tax generates about $5.2 million a year, which amounts to $26 million over five years.

As now proposed, some $10 million in transportation sales tax money could be earmarked for road repairs over the next five years.

The measure on the April ballot will mark the sixth rendition of the transportation tax, which city officials have called one of the most successful taxes in the city’s history.

City officials in the past have used the capital improvement tax to fund sewer and water improvements.

Officials this year have decided to use it not only for water system improvements and street repairs, but also for upgrades to the airport and renovations to the Common Pleas Courthouse with a goal of using it as city hall.

Water system improvements, involving replacement of some water lines and upgrades to the treatment plant, still would receive the bulk of the capital improvement tax dollars, Meyer said.

The tax would generate an estimated $16 million for water system improvements over the next 15 years, Meyer said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641