Will County Roads Be A Victim Of The Budget Crunch?

By Gordon HopkinsIn the search for potential budget cuts, one of the places Jefferson County Commissioners are looking at are county roads.With ever-increasing costs putting a strain on local budgets, commissioners are repeatedly faced with two options: raise taxes or cut services. Last year, commissioners opted to raise the tax levy by 4.66 percent.That will not be an option this year. Commissioner Michael Dux noted in a recent meeting, “We’re against the levy limit. We cannot tax any more.”At a public hearing on the levy in September of last year, commissioner Mark Schoenrock told those in attendance, “I talked to probably well over 100 people. There are constituents of mine in my district and I asked them, if you want to cut something, what do you want to cut?”Schoenrock said, “Nobody wants their roads maintained less frequently. Nobody wants less law enforcement. Nobody wants less ambulance service. Nobody wants the courthouse to be closed. They want instantaneous service. Nobody wanted to cut any level of service.”This year, the county will likely have to cut some services. One of the services being considered is road maintenance.Commissioners have discussed roads with the Jefferson County Highway Department. At a meeting in June, commissioner Dux said, “This isn’t going to solve everything, but he (Terry Blas of the Highway Department) mentioned a road. What was the figure that we would save on lowering the maintenance on a road?”Blas said, “On an average, it was about $10,000. A little more than that.”Dux said, “We’re still going to maintain it, but not much though.”There are some regulations that cover road maintenance. Blas said, “We need to look into our statutes. You know, maybe we need to change our dirt roads to minimum maintenance. Hit them once a month. Technically, once a year is all we need by the Nebraska statue. But, you know we ain’t going to get by with that.”No decisions about the roads were made at that meeting and commissioners stressed they were only looking at options.

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