Numbers update with County Commissioner Mark Sharpton

Essentially,….you paid $74.69 in taxes last year for roads in Logan County.

Can you take care of your lawn with $74.69 a year? Does it take more than $74.69 a year to maintain your car? I often find confusion in regards to the money Logan County receives for roads. I wanted to break down the numbers for you. All of the funds for roads and bridges are referred to as Highway Funds and are separate from other  county usable money. Highway Funds are restricted and to be used for  roads only and are not transferable to other accounts. This money stays in the highway account  year to year.  I often try to look at the funds we receive in different ways. I dislike numbers and I’ll go to sleep pretty fast reading them but I have broken down the money we receive in a couple of ways. The first is to look at the money we receive by year, divided by the miles Logan County maintains, divided by 12 months.

In FY 2012-2013, we received $3,507,874.65 in Highway Funds. That is the  grand total. However, Logan County keeps a portion back to match  federally funded road and bridge projects. This reduced the amount to $3,174,260.38.

Logan County has 1198.78 miles of roadway to maintain. That is a greater distance than from Guthrie to Winnipeg, Canada or from Guthrie to Charleston, South Carolina. We maintain that same distance at $2,647.90 a mile per year. Divide that by 12 months and it equals $220.66 per month, per mile. This scenario is looking at the distance of roads we have. Bridge maintenance was not figured in but some of it does come out of the same money.

Now examine the money compared to the amount of people. Logan County has 42,499 residents. Take the county highway money of $3,174,260.38 and divide it by population. Essentially, each resident paid $74.69 to maintain the roads in Logan County for an entire year. This includes  mowing right-of-way, grading, buying gravel, signs, culverts, asphalt  for patching potholes, payroll for employees, and any other costs associated with roads and bridges.  The amount you paid as a resident of Logan County last fiscal year would buy 3.48 tons of gravel delivered to the Logan County Dist. 1 shop. It takes  about 100 tons to gravel one mile of road. According to current calculations it would take $109,256.00 to overlay an 18’ wide road for  one mile. Compare this to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s  budget of $18,145,296.63, with road miles of 12,281, which equal $7,213.72 per  mile a year or $601.14 per month per mile for State Highways.

Remember, we do not get property tax for roads.

I hope this helps people understand what local government is up against.  We squeeze pennies so tight you can’t determine heads from tails. What’s the answer to this? It’s simple. The  legislature needs to remove worthless state programs and allocate more money to serve the  citizens for roads. Or you, the people, vote to raise taxes to fund roads locally? I  am an advocate for the reduction of state programs that are not needed and for reapportioning money to the counties directly for proper funding for  roads and bridges.