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Decatur officials report FY2024 use of Rebuild Alabama Act funds for resurfacing and intersection grants
Summary
Finance staff presented the required FY2024 Rebuild Alabama Act report, outlining grant awards and local resurfacing projects funded from the excise tax; city staff described unaudited receipts and a small remaining fund balance and named two recent grant awards.
Dawn Runager, finance director for the City of Decatur, presented the city’s required annual report on Rebuild Alabama Act (RAA) funds, saying the program covers resurfacing road and bridge projects and does not include other gas-tax funding sources. “This is just our RAA,” Runager said, describing the state program enacted in 2019 and implemented as an increase in the fuel excise tax.
Runager told the council the state uses RAA funding for economic development, construction relief and municipal grants and that there are two grant streams under RAA, including the annual grant program. She said statewide awards in 2023 totaled about $40,000,000 and that the typical maximum award is $2,000,000. On Decatur’s books, staff forecast $400,000 in excise-tax receipts for the fund and budgeted $457,110.65 for projects; Runager described the revenue and remaining balance figures as unaudited. “We did have a little bit of fund balance left over, which was re-budgeted,” she said, and added the city currently shows about $104,601 remaining in the fund balance pending midyear adjustments.
Runager and City Engineer Carl Pruett reviewed projects paid from the RAA account and two grant awards the city received: an intersection improvement project on Beltline Road at Sandlin and Central (the award and matching amounts were presented in the council packet) and improvements at Highway 67 and Upper River Road, also funded in part by RAA grants. Runager noted matching city funds had been budgeted for both grants and said staff would return with any midyear adjustments if more resurfacing projects were identified.
Council members clarified that RAA money is only one of the city’s resurfacing revenue sources; Runager and Pruett confirmed other gas taxes and local funds also pay portions of resurfacing work. No formal action was required for the informational report.
City staff said the figures cited in the presentation are unaudited numbers and will be revisited at midyear if project priorities change.
