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City allocating over $3M for paving deteriorating roads

Official says effort is three years behind and funding is not enough.

Many city streets in Dayton, including Brown Street pictured here, have noticeably fallen into disrepair. Though fixing Brown Street was anticipated and will begin in April, the city will be spending $2 million not in the budget to begin repair of other streets.

Chris Stewart/Chris Stewart Many city streets in Dayton, including Brown Street pictured here, have noticeably fallen into disrepair. Though fixing Brown Street was anticipated and will begin in April, the city will be spending $2 million not in the budget to begin repair of other streets.

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By Jeremy P. Kelley, Staff Writer Updated 11:20 AM Thursday, February 9, 2012

DAYTON — The city of Dayton plans to issue $2 million in debt for 2012 specifically to be used for paving more of its deteriorating roadways, but that likely won’t make a significant dent in the problem.

Steve Finke, the city’s assistant public works director, told City Commission on Wednesday that Dayton is at least three years behind on its residential and thoroughfare paving program.

“We should probably be doing between $4 million and $5 million a year in total resurfacing to reasonably catch up, and even that would take years,” Finke said. “Once we were caught up, we would need to do $3 million to $4 million a year to maintain it.”

The city has allocated a total of $3.3 million for resurfacing thoroughfares and residential streets in 2012, counting the $2 million in borrowing. The $3.3 million is part of Dayton’s $23.8 million infrastructure plan for streets, curbs, traffic signals, bikeways and bridges.

The infrastructure plan includes three roadway projects that fall outside the $3.3 million in resurfacing — reconstructing Patterson Road between Smithville Road and Wilmington Pike, reconstructing Brown Street from Irving to Wyoming, and redoing James H. McGee Boulevard, from Hoover to Brooklyn.

The city worked on several similar projects in 2011, including the Wayne/Wilmington intersection, earlier phases of James H. McGee improvements, and the continuing efforts to replace 17 bridges, with 12 of them now finished.

City Commissioner Joey Williams said the city sets budget priorities every year with the input of citizens and in recent years has deferred some road maintenance in order to keep more police and fire employees on the streets.

“You can only defer road maintenance for so long,” Williams said. “Our police, fire and trash services are essential, but if we don’t have roads and bridges that are suitable, we can’t provide those services either.”

Like many local cities, Dayton finally saw a recovery in income tax receipts in 2011, and a continued boost there would provide a little budget flexibility.

But just as a recovery may be beginning, Dayton and other cities will see cuts in local government funding from the state and cuts in block grant money from the federal government.

Finke said close to 85 percent of the city’s 2012 capital projects are funded by outside sources, from state public works grants to Army Corps of Engineers funds, permissive license taxes and other sources.

But city economist Diane Shannon said simple road resurfacing rarely qualifies for outside funding, meaning the city has to find the money within its own budget. Finke said deferring maintenance can cause further deterioration, creating the need for a full road reconstruction, which costs five to six times more than resurfacing.

“We’re probably going to have to take the same approach as with the bridges,” Wililams said. “Repair those in greatest need first, try every possible way to leverage federal or state money, and then it comes down to how many dollars do we have?”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2278 or jkelley@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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