Wilkens’ office designs, builds, and maintains 266 miles of county and township roads, 398 bridges, and 927 culverts. He hasn’t presented his annual capital improvement plan yet — he typically does that in early March — but he has identified $8.9 million worth of projects the additional money will help pay for, including 10 bridge projects and $1.25 million for paving.
“The problem is we’re running into is the inflation. Since 2019 we have an 87% increase in asphalt,” Wilkens said. “It’s just not us, anybody that’s in this industry is in the same boat, inflation is just rampant and really hurting us in our budgets.”
The largest project is $2.1 million for the 100-foot-long Minton bridge in Hanover Twp., and $1.4 million will pay for the Windisch bridge in West Chester Twp., plus there is $800,000 apiece for the Liberty Fairfield bridge between the two townships and the Twin State Line bridge near the Indiana border.
There are some other smaller bridge projects in Middletown, Oxford and West Chester Twp., and Wilkens penciled in $150,000 to fix some ADA ramps in the more urban areas.
This new cash infusion isn’t the first.
In 2022, the commissioners approved spending $10 million of their $74.4 million allocation of the 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.
The commissioners allocated $1.25 million for county roads, a $225,000 base for each township plus additional stipends based on the number miles the jurisdictions maintain for a total of $5 million in 2023 and last year. With the additional allocations, the range was $459,034 for West Chester Twp. to $236,597 for tiny Lemon Twp. The county maintains 266 miles, West Chester 227 and Lemon Twp. 11.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said Wilkens has made an excellent case for the commissioners to invest money in roadwork.
“Due to the cost of materials, blacktop and just the amount of culverts and bridges which had to be redone, we’re taking that responsibility for part of the costs off the townships,” he said.
Wilkens has “pleaded” with the commissioners for years to give him money — his main sources of income are gas taxes, license plate fees, grants and TIFs — for road improvements. This year only $255,994 comes from the main operating fund for the county.
Commissioner Don Dixon said they will “look at it year by year” as far as future funding goes. He said he still wants the main focus of the funding to be road repair and improvement.
“This frees up his budget to do other things, so although he might earmark this for bridges, this is going to give him some relief to use more money on the roads,” Dixon said.
Last year Wilkens' capital improvement plan tackled 46 projects — plus paving 50.2 road miles — totaling $24.4 million. Wilkens has been quite successful in culling grant money to help pay for roadwork and last year state and federal money amounted to $6 million.
His office has $3.8 million in federal funding lined up for projects this year and $839,395 from the Ohio Public Works Commission.
There have been changes announced daily since President Donald Trump took office and some have involved federal funding, albeit social programs in general have been the prime target.
Wilkens said “I’m not losing sleep” over potential funding cuts.
“We haven’t seen changes yet and people that I’ve talked to that are higher up on that spectrum than I am don’t think it’s going to have an impact on our money per se,” he said. “So that gives me a confidence to think we’re going to be okay, I sure hope so.”
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