Sonoma County roads crumble as funding shrinks over two decades
Between 1988 and 2007 the Board of Supervisors regularly allocated $7.3 million each year from the general fund for road maintenance. During the last four years that allocation has been cut every year and now rests at $4.7 million.
While it might appear the Supervisors have consistently funded roads for nearly two decades, county funding for road maintenance has actually been cut by nearly 70 percent, after adjusting for inflation during this period.
This graph converts county road funding over the last 22 years into 2011 dollars adjusting for inflation. It provides a vivid image of why many of Sonoma County’s 1,382 miles of county roads are crumbling.
Under current county policies, more than 1,000 miles of county roads are destined to become dirt or gravel instead of paved roads if the supervisors don’t make some hard choices.
To return to the levels of 1988 road maintenance, county funding would have to be increased to about $15 million from the $4.7 million currently allocated by the supervisors.
Instead, the supervisors have made even deeper cuts in general fund contributions, reducing the road maintenance budget 42 percent since the housing bust in 2007.
The supervisors may have begun to recognize that this approach to funding one of the county’s most important and valuable assets is unsustainable. SOSRoads asked the supervisors to increase funding for road maintenance at their board meeting on February 7, and they approved an increase of $2.2 million for the fiscal year beginning in July. This will bring the total budgeted amount to $6.9 million and will add 42 miles to the county’s high priority system which now totals 198 miles.
The new funds come from a portion of the franchise fees paid by solid waste haulers. Most of the supervisors thanked SOSRoads for its leadership in bringing attention to an issue that has been festering for years, if not decades.
The supervisors also discussed how to maintain the remaining 1,184 miles (86 percent) of orphan roads that now receive only emergency pothole repairs and will ultimately fail and become dirt roads. Long-term upkeep of the entire system might cost as much as $100 million annually, although employing new techniques for refurbishing roads might reduce this estimate substantially.
The Department of Transportation and Public Works estimates that 600 miles of collector roads and 222 miles of residential roads are at the end of their functional life, which represents 60 percent of all county roads. Its Road Ahead Report (2008) estimated the cost to rebuild these 822 miles to be more than $685 million. Director of Transportation Phil Demery estimates that rebuilding roads costs 10 to 15 times more than pavement preservation maintenance.
In February the board of supervisors appointed David Rabbitt and Shirley Zane to an ad hoc committee to develop a long term solution. Initially they seem to be considering a property tax increase, possibly in the form of road maintenance districts, which would require two-thirds approval by voters.
SOSRoads believes that before asking for new taxes, the supervisors should return to the 1988 level adjusted for inflation of $15 million per year from the general fund to preserve the county’s basic infrastructure.
It is easy to claim that roads are a priority, as the supervisors have often stated in recent years, while simultaneously slashing road maintenance budgets. JFK once observed that “to govern is to choose.” It’s high time for the supervisors to choose to improve the funding of our county road system.
