County highway department stays under budget

COLUMBUS -- The Platte County Highway Department’s 2007-08 fiscal report shows total expenditures for the year came in under budget by $582,446.

The department’s 2007-08 budget was $3.8 million; actual expenditures totaled $3.2 million.

A total of $4.3 million is budgeted for this fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009.

Platte County Highway Supervisor Fred Liss reported that a total of slightly more than $2 million has been spent through December.

Liss presented his annual report Tuesday morning to the Platte County Board of Supervisors at their regular meeting.

According to the report, the Platte County road network includes a total of 1,118 miles of roads ranging from minimum maintenance dirt roads to high-volume, hard-surfaced arterials.

Township mail routes account for 446 miles; 265 miles are designated county system gravel roads; 204 miles are township roads, and 137 miles are hard surface roads. The latter category does not include state or federal roads.

A total of $389,159.66 was spent on fuel and $506,575.50 on gravel and rock.

The county lists a total of 502 bridges; 373 bridges exceed 20 feet in length and are identified on the National Bridge Inventory System. The remaining 129 are 20 feet or shorter.

Bridges are rated by the bridge inventory system on a scale of 1-100. A score of 50 is acceptable.

The report states that 254 of the 373 bridges are rated at 80-100; 73 bridges are rated 60-80; 37 bridges received a score of 40-60, and 10 are rated at 20-40 on the federal inventory’s acceptability scale.

In the report, Liss noted that flood damage projects totaling $124,137 were submitted for reimbursement to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The projects included emergency response, debris removal, repairs to roads and bridges, and gravel replacement.

As of October federal and state agencies had approved $95,294.86 in project cost reimbursements.

The state and the county’s share is $11,912 each. Final settlement is expected following a review by the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.

The department’s oldest piece of equipment is a 1956-vintage tamping roller kept for backup in case similar equipment fails.

The highway department purchased a 2008 140M Caterpillar motor grader for $211,896 and sold a 1996 Galion 850C motor grader in 2008 for $15,000.