By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CENTREVILLE — One of the county agencies seeking a renewal of what St. Joseph County taxpayers are already paying will be the St. Joseph County Road Commission.
On the Aug. 6 ballot, the Road Commission will be seeking a renewal of their 1-mill millage to maintain funding for the agency. The millage has been in place at the 1-mill mark since 1994, and was renewed successfully in 2004 and 2014.
“This millage is what has allowed St. Joseph County to have 82 percent of our roads hard-surfaced,” Road Commission Manager John Lindsey said. “It is what we have built our local road network on.”
If county voters vote “yes,” the millage will renew and be in place for the next 10 years, while if voters vote “no,” the millage will not be renewed. Lindsey said the proposal would generate $2,465,386 during the first calendar year, with all of the money going to fund reconstruction, paving, resurfacing and other projects on local roads in the county. Nearly $641,000 of that money would be directly allocated to the cities and villages in the county for local road projects, while the townships receive their share through the Road Commission – that remaining amount accounts for about 10 percent of the annual budget for the agency, Lindsey said.
In layman’s terms, the millage equates to $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value.
Lindsey explained that Public Act 51, which governs many aspects of road funding in the state, requires the road commission to spend 33 percent of its gas tax funds for the maintenance of its 685.12 miles of local roads, with anything additional having to come from local sources. He said local roads have gotten better in the last 10 years in terms of average PASER rating, which evaluates the quality of roads, thanks in part to the millage.
“We PASER rate our roads, and in 2014, they were rated a 4.4 [out of 10], and we’ve improved that score to 6.1, averaging all of the local roads,” Lindsey said. “A 10 is the best you can get.”
Lindsey said that compared to other counties, St. Joseph County has a high percentage of hard-surfaced roads, and the millage has helped keep it that way in that regard. By comparison, he said Branch County has about 65 percent hard-surfaced roads, Cass County is at around 75 percent, and Barry County is at 55 percent.
Funds from the millage do not go to so-called “primary” roads, such as Lutz Road, Shimmel Road, or Centreville-Constantine Road. Rather, they go to the “local” roads that don’t get as much traffic and that feed into the primary roads, for example Mahnke Road, Bullock Road, Schweitzer Road, Orla Engle Road, and other similar roads.
Overall, Lindsey said he hopes voters remember the millage is just a renewal and not a new tax, as well as the impact the millage will have on the roads in the county, when they go to the ballot box to cast their vote.
“It’s important to the quality of the local road network. I know what it does for roads, but I try to inform. This is what people have grown accustomed to in St. Joseph County for their local road network. Without that money in the local road network, the roads won’t be as good,” Lindsey said. “It’s done a lot for our local road network in St. Joseph County. You’d never have that high of a rate without this millage.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
