“You can see we’re up 130% since 2021 on the cost to build anything and do anything,” Wilkens said. “I’m sure everyone’s dealing with that a little bit, but the construction cost is really higher than most all other costs we’ve come to see. The additional money you’re considering for 2025 is going to be well spent.”
Wilkens’ office designs, builds, and maintains 266 miles of county and township roads, 398 bridges, and 927 culverts. This year his capital improvement plan tackled 46 projects — plus paving 50.2 road miles — totaling $24.4 million.
The commissioners have agreed to give Wilkens $5 million outside his normal budgetary requests to combat ever-increasing costs.
Wilkens has already identified $8.9 million worth of projects the additional money will help pay for including 10 bridges and $1.25 million for paving. He told the Journal-News unfortunately the paving allocation won’t go far because inflation “is devastating our budgets.”
“All that $1.2 (million) did was make up for inflation quite honestly,” Wilkens said. “Between ‘18 and now asphalt went up 89% It’s crazy and it really hurts. We got that gas tax increase in ‘19, the 10.5 cents and inflation had it done by ‘21.... We couldn’t put anymore pavement on the ground than we did before in ‘21 because inflation raised it so high.”
When the state passed the 10.5-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike in 2019 Wilkens got an estimated $1.5 million annual revenue increase. Unlike many county offices and departments the engineer’s office does not rely on the general fund to operate. Only $255,994 comes from the main operating fund for the county, the bulk of Wilkens’ $29.5 million budget for next year will be paid for with motor vehicle tax money.
Wilkens has culled outside money for major projects, but he told the commissioners grants are “getting harder to come by.” The extra funds can also be used as matching money for state and federal dollars and he said he’ll go after everything he can, even if the matching amount is high, “we’ve been as high as 50% match, but 50% federal money is better than putting 100% of our money into it.”
This new cash infusion isn’t the first.
In 2022, the commissioners approved spending $10 million of their $74.4 million allocation of American Rescue Plan Act windfall over two years to improve county and township roads. Cities in Butler County manage their own road maintenance and paving programs, but Wilkens’ office bids and supervises township road projects, and the townships pay for the work.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers told the Journal-News by giving Wilkens the extra money now, “we feel by Greg being able to maintain the roads the way he has been will save us more than $5 million a year down the road.”
Wilkens agreed saying when you let roads go too long the rehabilitation work is infinitely more expensive. He said sometimes people don’t realize how important maintenance is.
“We all like to cut the ribbons on the new big projects... No one really talks about maintenance but it’s a huge part of our analysis every day,” Wilkens said. “Don’t get me wrong we surely enjoy building the big projects and all that too, but in reality there’s a lot behind the scenes no one knows, or realizes or thinks about. After the ribbon’s cut no one’s thinking about maintaining that pavement.”
Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News with grant opportunities dwindling now was the time for them to step up with additional money for Wilkens’ operation, “we have the money put away and now is the time to use it.”
Wilkens warned the commissioners he will continue to ask them for more money every year, “I think it’s critical to keep the system up.”
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