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County engineer outlines $37.5 million 2026 capital program and list of bridge and road projects
Summary
County engineer Greg Wilkins presented a detailed 2026 capital improvement program that he said totals about $37.5 million, highlighted major bridge replacements and intersection improvements funded in part by federal and OPWC grants, and described force-account work for smaller projects. Several project cost figures in the transcript appear to contain transcription anomalies and were flagged for verification.
County Engineer Greg Wilkins briefed the Butler County Board of Commissioners March 17 on the department's proposed 2026 capital improvement program and a long list of bridge and roadway projects.
Wilkins (S10) described an overall CIP of about $37.5 million, saying bridges account for roughly 30–36% of the program. He reviewed multiple individual projects including Shane Lee Road Bridge (presented with associated road work), Cal Station Road Bridge, Shores Road Bridge and Windish/Crescentville bridge work. Wilkins said bridge projects have been offered as design-build contracts to control rising engineering costs.
He also described intersection improvements (including planned roundabouts where accident history supported the design), resurfacing and paving contracts (including township and county resurfacing partnerships), and force-account work the engineer's office performs with county crews to save costs on smaller projects such as culverts and drainage.
Wilkins said the county regularly matches federal and OPWC grants to leverage limited local funds and estimated that grant monies account for about 46% of total construction costs across the portfolio. He described one contract with the city of Oxford on Bottom Road Bridge in which Oxford is contributing $325,000 toward a roughly $900,000 project; Wilkins said the county's share is $576,000.
Several large numeric values in the transcript (for instance, certain cost lines read as multi‑billion-dollar amounts in the record) appear to be transcription or recording errors. The county engineer's overall descriptions of project types, locations and funding sources were clear; project-level dollar figures should be confirmed with the engineer's office and formal contract documents before publication.
Why it matters: the CIP sets short-term priorities for critical road and bridge repairs and influences county budgeting and grant applications. The presentation also reinforced the county's strategy of using grants and design-build contracts to contain costs.
What happens next: projects will proceed through standard procurement and grant-acceptance steps; the engineer and administrator said further details and financing scenarios will be brought back to the board as individual contracts and bids are ready for approval.
