The College Avenue Bridge repair project slated to begin this year has hit a snag, and construction had to be postponed because the anticipated funds are no longer available.
County Engineer Ron Cassada told the county board of supervisors on Monday that the College Avenue job had been designed and was waiting to be funded. “But you’re not going to get any money this year because they spent that federal money on bridge inspections,” he said.
Cassada said that the $30 million in federal money that is normally allocated for road and bridge repair went to the state’s wooden bridge inspections provided by outside federal contractors.
“That limits the amount of federal money available for construction, because now they are using it for inspections, it’s that simple,” Cassada said. “They hired outside engineers with whopping contracts and used that federal money,” he added.
Supervisor Dennis Holmes said that the county engineers are paid roughly $300 per bridge to do inspections.
“Federal inspectors are getting anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 per bridge,”Holmes said.
He said he wanted to make sure the public knew why the bridge was not going to be built this year, saying that the federal people hired the outside contractors and used up the funds.
Instead of using the typical $800,000 in federal money for wooden structure inspections, they are using almost $30 million in federal money.
“And that money comes out of the State Aid money for counties to build bridges with,” said Holmes.
Cassada said the way it should have been handled was for the feds to get with the county engineers and say that they found a problem with the way those inspections were done, and tell them, ”This is what we need to have done.” Although, Cassada assured, “We have been doing them the way they said do them.”
Normally each county in the state receives a certain amount of federal State Aid money through MDOT that is not distributed through any particular formula. That money goes into a “pot” and the county engineers design projects and put them on the shelf, “Which means it’s ready to go, and when the federal money comes in they just pick the ones based on where they are in the line and it funds them,” Cassada said.
So what has happened this year is that $30 million of that federal money that would normally be going for bridges or federal projects where they would start funding the ones in line went to federal contractors. Cassada explained that the inspections were federally mandated and not by State Aid or MDOT.
Although the bridge is located inside of the city limits, it is actually a State Aid road project, which means Sunflower County could use its state bridge funds to do the work. The City of Indianola has an agreement with the county whereby they pay to relocate the utilities. The sewer and water lines had to be moved for the construction and the city has already paid to have that work done.
The bridge has been deemed deficient but not unsafe. Cassada said the bridge is safe for car traffic but school busses are not allowed to cross it.
The project has been in the works for some time and one of the holdups in getting started had been getting the state Department of Transportation to approve the specifications for the new bridge. Originally the state required the bridge to be built as a highway bridge, which required wider lanes to accommodate 65-mph traffic. But building the bridge that wide would have caused the street to be almost at the doorsteps of nearby homes, but since it is a city bridge, it is allowed to be narrower.
Cassada said he is unsure now of when the project will begin. “You never know how long,” he said. But the county cannot program another project until the College Avenue project is complete because they are only allowed one project at a time.
In other business the board,
Voted to accept the low bid of $835,239.60 by Dozier LLC, of Natchez after taking it and three others under advisement for the 0.127 miles of construction to replace the bridge and approaches on Jeffcoat-Lehr Road. The engineering estimate for the work was $773,548.25 with 120 workdays. Steve Johnson, district state aid representative, recommended taking the bids under advisement and came back later to recommend they accept Dozier’s bid.
Other bidders were J.J. Ferguson Sand & Gravel with a bid of $839,793.39, N.L. Carson bid $1,081,554.29, and McBrideCo of Batesville came in at $1,012,737.50.
Voted to give Sheriff James Haywood requested employee pay raises that will amount to a $17,900 budget increase for his department.
