Public Works in the black, County Engineer says, but margins are "razor thin"

DAYTON–The Board of County Commissioners held a public hearing on December 7 with Public Works Director Chuck Eaton regarding several items that were later approved following the hearing.

“All of these plans,” Eaton said, “they are set up with the current budget that we have in at the Auditor’s Office. We do anticipate some changes in April, but these plans are set up to match with that budget.”

The South Touchet Road is the only project that will be in the County Arterial Preservation Program this year, Eaton said. “That will still keep us behind schedule in the Capital Arterial Program,” he said. “Capital funds are used for this program. They can only be used on this program. If we don’t use them in a year, they do roll. We don’t lose any money. It just starts to build up.”

These capital funds are loans through the Washington State County Road Administration Board (CRAB) acquired by the County.

Eaton listed nine fully funded projects planned within the Annual Construction Program. These projects, totaling $6.1 million, are partially funded by CRAB with additional funding expected next year. These projects include engineering work on Kellogg Hollow, Vernon Smith Bridge replacement construction, Turner South, Touchet Bridge rail update construction, Boldman Grade engineering and right-of-way, Kellogg Hollow Star Bridge engineering and right-of-way, North Touchet maintenance and stabilization (part of the emergency funding) and Tucannon Road Restoration.

Eaton presented the 6-Year Transportation Program which includes the 6-Year Transportation Improvement Program as submitted to Washington State Department of Transportation. The Commissioners were given a revenue and expenditure analysis and a bridge inspection report. Eaton made mention of the South Touchet Bridge that “it is now falling into the structurally deficient category.

“There is now heavy spalling and degradation of the head walls that the beams sit on at the bearing seats,” Eaton said. “It’s a relatively new bridge, so we probably will have to add a capital project at some point to add a retrofit on those head walls.” Eaton said that federal funds may be available for the project.

There are 31projects on the program, four of which are emergency projects from flood damage. Tucannon Road particularly from mile point five to Marengo is included.

The Capital Improvement Plan was also presented by Eaton which includes some capital improvements that are not within the current 2021 Budget that will need to be amended in April. One such project was for $10,000 additional funding for the Public Health Building project. The Plan includes around 20 projects consisting of just over half million dollars of facility improvements. There are $1.8 million unfunded facility needs. The rest of the projects are spread out over six years. Projections show that the HVAC system can be fully funded in 2021-2022.

“It gives me grave concern in the fact that our ending fund balances for the next three years are all anticipated to be down around $100,000 or less,” Eaton said. “Our minimum ending fund balance to make payroll is typically half a million before the first checks come in – a million is what we target. So we are basically running on fumes over the next three years cycle.

“This includes no diversion in the next two years, in 2022-2023, and we’re down to a $32,000 ending fund balance,” he said. “Obviously, this is just a projection. We can make changes to this projection as we move forward into next year. It does not include the new CRAB money that we got, $312,000, because that actually hasn’t been received yet. Our budgets will be a little bit better than that because of that emergency financing due to the flood. These are based on the obligations and the construction schedules, these are what the ending fund balances would be.”

Diversions are within the Commissioners’ authority to take in the coming cycles.

“The good news is that they are all positive numbers, their margins are razor thin,” Eaton said. “It paints a pretty bleak picture, but that’s the same bleak picture we painted to the CRAB Board when we asked for the emergency funding.”