Questions answered by Lamar Paris, County Commissioner
Questions Nov. 23, 2011 - Cost of county services
Q. I live on a private gravel road. It seems like for the amount of taxes I pay, my road should be maintained by the County. Why can’t you maintain my road?
A. There are approximately 550 miles of county maintained roads in Union County of which there are 90 miles of gravel, 372 miles asphalt and 63 miles surface treated paving. To put this in perspective for county maintenance, please realize that when we are picking up trash or mowing along these roads, this number doubles as we do each side of the road. Therefore, with the current staff we have and with our current budget, we simply could not afford to double our current work load. (550 miles of roadway would take you close to Washington, DC.)
Q. If there are 550 miles of county roads, how many miles are there of private roads?
A. There are 420 miles of private roads.
Q. Why are there so many private roads?
A. Since 1989 and amended in 1992, Union County has had road construction guidelines for county roads. However, most developers over the past several years have chosen not to go to the extra expense of building their roads to county specifications. Many private roads are either too steep or too narrow or they did not have the proper amount of gravel or asphalt applied or do not have adequate right-of-way. Remember, there are still several people who like gravel roads and do not want their roads paved.
Q. So even though we pay our property taxes, we (living on a private road) do not get the same service as those living on a county road?
A. Typically, property on non-county roads and especially gravel roads were generally sold at a lesser price because of the particular road situation. So hopefully you gained some revenue when making your purchase. We should all remember that even though the particular road you live on is not a county road, it is most likely that the majority of roads you drive on to get to your home, are county roads. In addition, most road construction money comes from SPLOST sales tax vs. only property taxes.
Q. If we live on a private road, is there ever a chance of getting it paved?
A. There are still several roads each year that have been upgraded and the county is always willing to look at and try to work with property owners on some of these roads. It normally requires that the property owners participate in the cost of the upgrade. Depending on how old the road is or the number of homes located on a given road also is a factor. However, if property owners are not willing to give R/W or if roads are just too steep or too narrow and houses are built right up against the edge, it will be unlikely those roads could be converted to a county road.
Q. What if we live on a county gravel road, can it be paved?
A. Normally, we pave several miles of county gravel roads each year. However, as the cost of asphalt and tar and fuel have increased, we simply have not had adequate funds to pave as much as we would like.
Q. Will the new Transportation Sales Tax (TSPLOST) that we will vote on next July, raising our sales tax from 7 cents to 8 cents, help our county to pave and maintain more roads?
A. You bet it will. While 75% of the new sales tax will go toward funding state highway routes, 25% will come back to individual counties to fund our local road projects. Some of this money can also be utilized for operation. So the TSPLOST would positively impact new road paving and widening, and it could possibly also help either reduce or maintain our property tax base.
Q. How much money would Union County receive from the TSPLOST each year just for county road work?
A. Based on GDOT estimates of TSPLOST sales tax revenues and based on the GDOT LMIG formula for Union County funding (4/5 on road miles and 1/5 on population), Union County could receive as much as $ 20 million dollars over the next ten years, which would be phenomenal! Because of the high cost of tar and asphalt, we have been patching many paved roads as opposed to completely resurfacing them. This has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars, but eventually, many of these roads will need to be resurfaced and this extra money could not only do that, but allow us to also pave may more miles of existing county roads and save local tax dollars.
Q. How much does the county spend on the Road Dept. operation?
A. We anticipate spending approximately $1.6 million from SPLOST funds and approximately another million in general fund revenue this year. This includes not only road work, but fleet maintenance for all the county vehicles, including fuel. This is a very large operation and fortunately, we have excellent employees that provide a superior service to the citizens of Union County. We have the reputation from truck and delivery personnel of having one of the best county road systems and addressing systems in the area and we are very proud of that.