BENTONVILLE -- Benton County officials say it will be another month before they can say whether the county will catch up on this year's road plan.
"We're about a month behind right now," said Jeff Clark, county public services administrator and head of the Road Department. "The weather has held us back."
Clark told the Quorum Court in May the county had greatly surpassed the average rainfall amount for the first five months of the year, and the Road Department was falling behind on its schedule. The county had proposed a plan that included about 53 miles of paving work with a $2.2 million paving budget. Clark said in May he was optimistic the county could complete the work, and he still thinks that can happen.
"Right now, we're running about three and a half weeks or a month behind our original schedule. We're working, we're laying base and asphalt. It all depends on the weather," Clark said.
County Judge Bob Clinard agreed with Clark's assessment.
"It's the rain," Clinard said of the delays. "Surely the rain is going to let up and allow us to get back to work."
Clark and Clinard said they will keep a close eye on the progress the Road Department is making and may consider having some work done by contractors if necessary.
"Within a month we'll see where we are," Clinard said. "By the end of this month we'll take an assessment and determine whether we want to sub-contract it out. It takes 20 days to bid something, but it's still an option."
Having the work done by a contractor will increase the costs to the county, but that has to be weighed against the possibility of the work not getting done this year, Clinard said.
"It's a matter of increasing the cost or getting something done within our budget," he said. "We can do the work ourselves for less dollars per mile. But we'll get to pave more if we subcontract it out."
Pat Adams, justice of the peace for District 6, recently was named head of the county's Transportation Committee that oversees the road program and other transportation issues. Adams said the weather has affected all types of construction work in the area, so he's not surprised the county's road work has been delayed. He wouldn't be opposed to having the work done on a contract basis if it allows the county to keep to its schedule.
"With the weather being what it has been, I think we may have to," he said. "I've never had a problem with subcontracting as long as we get three good bids."
Keeping the county's road work on schedule is more than just a transportation issue, Adams said.
"We have to keep up with our infrastructure because of the way the county is growing," he said. "I'd really like to meet that 53-mile threshold. It will cost a little more if we subcontract it out, but the county's not going to slow down just because it costs us a little more."
Clark is working toward reaching the planned target of paving 53 miles of county roads this year, but he has given up on exceeding that goal. During the budget process, Clark told the justices of the peace if the work program went well he might ask for more money to do additional paving work.
"I think it's realistic we will achieve our goal of 53 miles," he said. "Doing more than that, there's a chance, but not as good a chance as I would've liked us to have. I think the 53 miles is pretty well going to max us out. But we did 22 miles last year, so getting the 53 miles done is still pretty good."
Contract work
Brenda Guenther, comptroller, said Benton County allocated $225,000 in the Road Department's 2015 budget for contract work and has $102,000 remaining at the beginning of July. In 2014, she said the county Road Department spent more than $1.1 million on contract work, but much of that was for repairing damage from August 2013 flooding.
Source: Staff report
General News on 07/08/2015