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Public Works asks for ongoing overlay, fleet funding and underscores rising road use and costs
Summary
During the Johnson County BOCC budget hearing, Public Works presented requests for ongoing funding for overlays and fleet replacement, highlighted a 49% rise in average daily traffic on unincorporated roads and urged sustained support for the CARS program amid rising commodity costs.
Public Works Director Brian Petig and staff told the Board of County Commissioners the department needs additional ongoing tax support to maintain pavement and fleet replacement cycles as commodity and construction costs rise.
Petig said the recommended FY2026 budget includes a $500,000 ongoing increase to support the county's overlay program and several funded Requests for Additional Resources (RARs) for overlays and fleet replacement. He told commissioners this addition is intended to address long-running underfunding of routine road maintenance.
Why it matters: changes to county pavement funding and the CARS program affect road safety, local city partners and the condition of unincorporated roads traveled daily by residents and commercial vehicles.
Public Works staff presented crash and traffic data to link investments to safety outcomes. "We're actually trending down," Jeff Fuss, Public Works, said of crashes per thousand vehicles, while noting vehicle counts have increased. Fuss said run-off-the-road crashes declined about 40 percent to 88 percent at sites with recent shoulder improvements based on before-and-after data, and the unincorporated road network now carries about 618,000 vehicle trips per day with a 49% increase in daily traffic over the referenced period.
Petig described routine in-house efficiencies, such as performing more inspections internally and using a skid-steer attachment for ditch cleaning, and highlighted completed safety and maintenance projects. He said the county has 62 vehicles tracked for better usage and that maintaining roads earlier is cheaper than letting surfaces deteriorate into more costly repairs.
The county's CARS (County Assistance Road System) program was a focal point. Petig and commissioners explained the FY2026 recommendation of about $18.8 million for CARS is comprised of roughly $13.1 million from state distributions of motor-fuel taxes and $5.7 million from the county's local contribution funded by a 0.343 mill levy. The county contribution is not required by statute, Petig said, and board policy has governed the program since the 1980s. Commissioner questions and staff responses noted the state share has not kept pace with construction-cost inflation over decades; Petig said the program has lost buying power and that the county's mill-based contribution has increased in absolute dollars as property valuation grows.
Commissioners asked for further detail on program metrics, including pavement-condition indexing and miles of roadway in fair or poor condition. Petig said the department tracks an asphalt pavement index and could break out miles by condition bands on request; he also noted the vehicles-per-day statistic applies only to unincorporated areas.
No formal votes were taken during the presentation. Commissioners thanked Public Works staff for responsiveness and asked budget staff to include the requested RARs and the recommended ongoing overlay support in the revisit list for the continuing budget process.
