The Logan County Commissioners learned they will receive nearly $3 million additional dollars to spend over the next five years on roads and bridges after learning they were not allocated their state funds properly.
Guthrie News Page has added the video of the meeting at the conclusion of this article. The topic begins at the 6:00 mark in the video.
In a special meeting held Friday morning, Circuit Engineer District (CED) No. 5 Manager Carol Cline informed the commissioners Logan County under spent $2,993,530 million dollars and that Oklahoma and Payne counties over spent since the inception of the CED’s in 2007.
“How come is it we are just now finding this?” Commissioner Monty Piearcy asked.
Cline responded but did not elaborate, “We just took the plan over last year, completely. It’s not shared anymore with CED 8.” Logan County was moved to CED No. 5 a year ago from CED No. 8.
The County projected about $8.3 million in state funds to go toward county projects over the next five years, but now has been bumped up to around $11.2 million with the new information.
State law allows counties to come together as a cooperative and provide efficiencies that are not available to an individual county. The Districts act as a political subdivision of the counties. The Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma (ACCO) hired staff to implement the program with funding provided through the State Auditor and Inspector’s office. Today the Oklahoma Cooperative Circuit Engineering Districts Board (OCCEDB) and CED’s are funded through state and county funds.
In the complex system, the County Improvements Roads and Bridges (CIRB) state fund is budgeted for $120 million for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT). In return, ODOT disburses $15 million to the eight CED’s who then divides up between the counties within their district.
Logan County is grouped with nine counties and is split with Oklahoma and Payne counties. The three counties were to split $5 million ($1.66 million). However, Oklahoma County received approximately $10.5 million, Payne County $8 million and Logan County $4.75 million over the recent years.
“So, what I have done this year is, I have added that into yours (Logan County) and the over spending is going to be deducted out of the other (Oklahoma and Payne) counties,” Cline said. “That is why you came up with that close to $3 million.”
Piearcy was uncertain why it had taken so long to find the miscalculations.
“This (CED) has been in effect for seven years and no one has ever asked for these documents in the past,” Piearcy asked.
“You can always ask ODOT. They are very good at sending those if you’re interested. It’s just we haven’t had those in our (CED) meetings, but that is something we are going to start doing. I think it’s a good idea so that you guys all know what is happening,” Cline said.
“Looks like to me, seven years ago it would have been a good idea to start keeping a ledger on our money,” Piearcy fired back with.
“It would have probably, but it didn’t happen,” Cline said.
No wonder our roads are in such disrepair. Just look at all the agencies involved in distributing funds. Gotta love the gov’t.