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Board approves $87 million 2025–29 highway improvement plan focused on paving, bridges and roundabouts
Summary
County engineer presented a five-year highway plan that leans heavily on local option sales tax and competitive grants to fund nearly $87 million in work across the county. The board voted to approve the plan.
Crow Wing County commissioners on April 8 approved the county’s 2025–2029 Highway Improvement Plan, a multi-year construction program that the county engineer said totals roughly $86.8 million in planned investment.
County Engineer Tim Bray described the funding mix during a board presentation: federal competitive grants, county state aid, local option sales tax, state bridge bonding and a modest county property-tax levy. "Of that $86,800,000, we're only planning to spend $2,100,000 of Crow Wing County property tax levy," Bray said, adding that the plan leverages outside sources to expand work across the county.
The five-year plan lists roughly 88 miles of work made affordable with local option sales tax proceeds and includes multiple roundabouts, bridge replacements and bridge rehabs. Bray said the plan envisions higher paving activity in the early years — roughly 30–35 miles annually in some years — with smaller volumes later in the period, and highlighted partnerships with MnDOT and townships on bridge projects and federally funded safety improvements.
One component of the plan is replacing an aging traffic signal with a roundabout at a location where repeated maintenance and the age of the signal made replacement more cost-effective, Bray said. The plan also includes a mix of county-state-aid roads and first assessment district projects; the county engineer said the plan aims to reduce deferred pavement needs toward a target of eliminating the backlog by 2030.
Commissioners discussed the sales tax’s role in enabling the program. Commissioner Burrows praised the local option sales tax as an alternative to property-tax increases and said it has allowed more work without raising levy burdens.
A motion to approve the 2025–2029 Highway Improvement Plan passed on a recorded voice vote. The motion was made by Commissioner Lee and seconded by Commissioner Coring; the roll call recorded ayes from Commissioners Burrows, Lubcke, Lee, Coring and Franzen.
County staff will continue planning and engineering activities required to prepare the individual projects for bidding and construction and will notify local partners about schedules and design details.
