‘This is just the math’: Valley Co. has $84 million in road needs with a $3 million budget

‘This is just the math’: Valley Co. has $84 million in road needs with a $3 million budget

John Stevenson is among Valley County’s newest employees, yet he already has an $84 million problem on his plate.

Stevenson was hired in May as the Road and Bridge Department’s operations manager – a new position designed to orchestrate road work for the county on both a daily basis and from year to year.

Stevenson’s first assignment is stretching a $3 million budget for paved road maintenance across an $84 million backlog of work needed on 103 miles of paved county roads.

“Basically, I’m taking $3 million, and I’m going to smear it across that $80 million in work that needs to be done to try to sustain that as long as I possibly can,” Stevenson told the Board of County Commissioners on Sept. 28.

The financial reality facing the road department was detailed in a study presented to the county commissioners on Monday. The study assessed conditions on all 726 miles of county roadway to rank and prioritize maintenance needs.

About 103 miles of the county’s asphalt road system were found to be in failing or poor condition, with repairs estimated to cost about $83.7 million over the next eight years, according to JUB Engineers, the Meridian engineering firm that completed the study.

That cost does not account for another $25 million in chip sealing treatments on paved roads currently in fair or good condition, nor for maintenance on a combined 490 miles of gravel and dirt roads.

The report estimated that the county needs about $6.8 million per year in additional funding to meet the projected maintenance needs.

“This is just the math of what it’s going to take based on engineering assessment,” Road and Bridge Director Kerstin Dettrich said. “How do we pay for this as the county continues to grow is the big question.”

Property tax levy could help close gap

One option would be levying property taxes to fund the work. County road work currently does not receive any property tax funding.

In 2019, a $4 million permanent road levy failed to receive the two-thirds majority vote needed for approval. That levy would have cost taxpayers about $84 per $100,000 in assessed value.

Dettrich suggested pursuing a temporary two-year levy to lower the approval threshold to a simple majority – a threshold the 2019 levy cleared with about 51% of the vote.

“I think telling our constituents what we’re going to do with those funds is super critical,” Commissioner Sherry Maupin said. “That’s where we failed last time.”

Statewide, 21 out of 34 county road departments are levying property taxes to fund operations, Dettrich said.

The commissioners did not commit to a road levy at Monday’s meeting, but are expected to consider doing so at a future meeting. Impact fees paid to the road department by developers are also under consideration, as Valley Lookout reported.

If no additional funding is found, the road department would need to operate on about $4 million per year in state funding. That would fund about $1 million in snowplowing and $1 million in road maintenance, Dettrich said, adding that the other $2 million would cover staffing and operational expenses.

The maintenance backlog has accumulated over the years as growth has put more traffic on county roads while maintenance costs have risen and federal funding has declined.

The Valley County Road Department formerly received as much as $3 million per year from timber receipts on tax-exempt federal land, which makes up about 86% of the county. The Secure Rural Schools program was passed to offset declining timber receipt funding, but payments from the program have declined in recent years and are uncertain to be renewed by Congress.

Road Dept. revamped to tackle backlog

While Dettrich views a temporary levy as an important piece of the puzzle, she is not banking on it to solve all of the road department’s problems. She also knew what she was getting into when she was hired last October to lead the road department.

“When I was interviewed, I said it would take three to five years to get caught up,” she said. “I still stand by that sentiment.”

One of her first steps was restructuring the road department to operate more efficiently, including adding Stevenson’s position and new road crew foreman positions.

The department has historically lacked the staffing and administrative capacity to plan future projects while keeping up with day-to-day maintenance. Until recently, department leaders were routinely needed to operate snowplows and other equipment rather than plan and coordinate future work.

Stevenson’s job, in addition to helping oversee the county’s gravel road crews, is to coordinate and plan paving projects to be completed by subcontractors. He is at the center of the department’s new emphasis on contracting out asphalt work rather than completing it in-house.

Much of that asphalt work, including more than 30 small patching and repair projects completed this summer from Smiths Ferry to McCall, is being funded with reserve funds.

The reserve funding was left unspent in years past due to a lack of planning and administrative capacity, but now it is being spent to chip away at the backlog, Dettrich said.

“We’ll spend it out in 2027 and 2028,” she said. “And then we have to have a levy in place to continue to maintain the road system.”

Dettrich and Stevenson also divided the road department’s staff into crews that specialize in gravel road maintenance to maximize efficiency. One crew handles brushing, one crew handles blading, and a third crew handles culvert replacement and repair.

That approach keeps crews consistently working on the county’s 490 miles of gravel and dirt roads instead of getting bogged down on in-house asphalt projects.

Meanwhile, a public work ticket system was launched this summer to make it easier for people to alert the county to potholes, washouts, and other road damage.

Those measures, Dettrich said, are critical considering staffing struggles at the road department, which currently has four vacant positions across its 24-member staff.

Stevenson, who has decades of experience in road construction, recently started an in-house training program for equipment operators and obtaining a commercial driver’s license. Dettrich is optimistic the program could help attract new applicants for the department’s open positions while continuing to develop the skillsets of those already employed by the county.

“On any given day, given paid time-off, we may have six people running the county,” she said. “We’re very short staffed and our capacity issue is felt.”

Transitioning asphalt to gravel

Regardless of future funding, Dettrich expects the county to be forced to consider transitioning some asphalt roads to gravel roads.

That process already began this summer with a small section of Smylie Lane near a bridge over the North Fork Payette River.

The 2027 budget includes about $1.6 million for crushing and hauling gravel for county road crews to resurface 30 miles of gravel roadway. The same funding, if spent rebuilding an asphalt road, might buy the county one or two miles of new pavement.

“Ultimately, it’s everyone’s choice,” Dettrich said. “Either we pay for it, and this is the cost of doing that, or we adjust what our standards are.”