County to wait on road and bridge funding ballot question

Hiring consultants to rate the roads

By Katherine Nettles

Gunnison County commissioners discussed again this week how to approach a potential ballot question asking voters to support more funding for the upkeep of the county’s roads and bridges to cover a chronic budget shortfall. They determined they will take another year to get more data on the current state of roads in the county and what it would take to get them up to a higher standard. County staff is working with consultants to get that information ready for a candid public discussion in 2024.

The goal of securing more funding for road and bridges has been identified in the commissioners’ strategic plan, and has been a subject of concern and debate for several years as funding through the Highway User’s Tax Fund (HUTF) falls short and other state-wide initiatives have repeatedly failed to pass in legislation. 

“In our strategic plan, we have talked about the need to find a way to support revenues for road and bridge. As we know, we cannot take general fund money and put it into road and bridge. It comes through HUTF funds, and we know that the gap between what we’re supplying and the needs have grown over time. But we are pushing up against the deadline to see if we will go to the ballot,” reviewed county commissioner chair Jonathan Houck.

Houck acknowledged that voters will be cautious and this ballot question cannot be “a blanket question saying hey, we need some more money for road and bridge…if we go to the ballot, we want to go to the ballot prepared and informed and really having a robust discussion and putting the numbers on the table for the community.” 

County public works director Martin Schmidt said that while they know they have a shortfall, “What we don’t have is real, hard data about exactly how much that shortfall is, because we have been delaying maintenance and we have not been pursuing larger projects. We can only do them with grant funding, so it’s a bigger question about how much deferred maintenance occurred—how much to get our standard pavement condition up to a certain level, and what treatments and work needs to be done in specific areas to make sure we have a robust road network that supports the economic bones of our community. And while it’s something that we could probably do, I think it’s something that we could do a better job of with a consultant.”

Schmidt said regarding how to assess the roadways, he has found two consultant groups with a strong history doing that kind of work, and they are now gathering information for a pavement condition index (PCI) to rate the roads on a scale from 1% to 100% of meeting standards.

Schmidt said this can help explain to the public what it would take to go from a chip sealed road to a paved road in certain areas. 

“It’s almost taking an impact fee approach versus a general tax,” said county manager Matthew Birnie. “But that’s how you build an impact fee, with the actual project needs and conditions required to be able to meet that. The idea is that we would be very clear on what you’re asking out of the ballot.”

“So what I’m hearing is that we’re not quite there yet with that level of detail we would all prefer, from a staff perspective and from an elected perspective,” said Houck. He asked what impacts not going to the ballot this year would have while instead working to make “a really informed ask.”

Birnie said that the county did receive significant severance tax revenue (based on nonrenewable earth resource extractions such as oil and gas and coal) of about $1.5 million. Birnie described it as fairly volatile revenue that fluctuates from tens of thousands some years to the current level. “And we will put that toward road and bridge,” he said, which covers a minimum structural gap the county has on an ongoing basis but does not address new projects “or even higher level maintenance but allows us to sort of limp along with the status quo.”

Commissioner Liz Smith mentioned that Senate Bill 1260 will also provide a few hundred thousand dollars in state funding. “Despite state interventions and trying to bolster the funding that counties are needing for this,” she said, it is always a scramble. State funding will add up to about $1 million over about 10 years, said Birnie, but Schmidt countered that the county has a shortfall of more than that annually.

He said part of the next year of analysis will include considering new funding, and how it could affect county needs and opportunities over time.

“I think it’s really important that we have that time to educate the voters,” said commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels. She said she was happy to hear Schmidt preparing for public engagement.

“Everyone has their own road with their own issues. Everyone in the county has their own specific pothole that they would like to see fixed on a very specific timeline. So I think that people will understand those needs. But with the paving of Cottonwood and Little Blue [Creek Canyon]…digging into that public engagement is going to be important.”