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Trempealeau County highway department: staffing, equipment costs and construction plan laid out
Summary
The county highway presenter reviewed operations, a year of losses in bituminous and equipment cost pools, staffing and facilities, and a five-year construction outlook at the June 16 board meeting.
Neil (highway department presenter) told the County Board on June 16 that the Trempealeau County Highway Department operates as a complex enterprise fund with both internal operations (shops, fuel, equipment) and external transportation services (county, state and municipal work).
He said the department employs 52 people total with six administrative staff and the rest in field operations, runs a hot-mix asphalt plant and performs work for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, towns, cities and villages. Main facilities include the Whitehall shop and satellite shops in Strum, Arcadia, Osseo and Galesville.
Financial highlights for 2024 included equipment-operations expenses of $2,811,937, recovered revenue of $2,729,000 and an equipment loss of $82,258 that will be covered through operations. The bituminous plant showed a loss of $171,873 for 2024; the department plans modest material-price increases in 2025 to recover the shortfall. Fringe benefit cost pools totaled $1,985,887 with a recovery of $1,917,901.45, an under-recovery of about $84,000; the fringe rate increased from 6.6965 to 7.151 to help cover that difference.
Neil described operations broken between “outside defense” (transportation services funded by tax levy, GTA and other revenues) and cost-pool-funded functions (equipment, shop). He said the department performed roughly $2.6 million in county maintenance and construction labor and about $2.59 million in state operations labor; municipal work accounted for additional revenue.
Construction projects in 2024 included Shay Lane (about $1,873,000 listed in materials), a County S project and other overlays. Looking forward, the department is targeting a long-term goal to maintain 296 road miles with an average of about 9.87 miles of major work per year over a 30-year lifecycle, and is seeking modest annual budget increases of about 5% to keep up with rising costs.
Supervisors asked about truck procurement lead times and how county roads are designated versus town roads; Neil said mileage and historic designation influence who maintains a given road and that changing mileage allocation has funding implications for general transportation aid.
