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Chilton County to apply for $500,000 road reclamation grant; commission narrows local match to $250,000 and removes County Road 116
Summary
At a Chilton County work session, staff said the county will apply for a $500,000 reclamation grant due July 22 and commissioners agreed to reduce the county match to $250,000 and drop County Road 116 from the proposal to bring costs within the budget.
County staff told commissioners at a work session that the county is eligible to apply for a $500,000 federal road-reclamation grant due next Wednesday, July 22, to fund a comprehensive project that would cover roughly 2.75 miles of county roads in the northern part of Chilton County between Jemison and neighboring areas.
Staff described the project as a full-depth reclamation and said awards typically come out in late fall (last year the awards did not come until January). "The grant will be 500,000," the presenter said. Staff added that design work would follow the award and that construction or the county match could be required next year or pushed into the 27–28 fiscal year.
Commissioners and road staff discussed cost and scope options, debating whether to pursue full-depth reclamation (FDR) for its 15–20 year life span or a lower-cost chip-seal approach. Road staff gave rough cost figures for alternatives: "a based on ourselves, the material cost would be about 50,000 a mile in materials for us to do it" and other participants cited FDR costs closer to $400,000 per mile in past budgets. One commissioner estimated a $75,000 difference in local cost depending on surface selection.
To make the project fit local budget constraints, the commission agreed to alter the resolution and reduce the county match. "We will change the resolution and we'll commit to only 250,000, and we'll delete County Road 116 from the project," the presenter summarized, asking for consensus. Commissioners agreed to the change and staff said the county would provide the $250,000 match.
The next steps: staff will revise the resolution for the regular meeting agenda and move forward with the grant application. If the grant is awarded, staff said design would be done by county engineers and construction could follow depending on award timing and the county fiscal schedule.
Why it matters: the grant would leverage federal funds to perform a long-life surface treatment on county roads that staff said are in poor condition; limiting the county match and deleting a section of roadway reduces near-term local spending but also narrows the scope of which roads would be improved.
