The Riley County Commission told County Engineer Dan Harden that he would need to take his road and bridge fund money request to the Budget Committee. Here is the issue as given by Harden:

BACKGROUND

It is anticipated the road and bridge fund will have an unencumbered cash balance of about $270,000 at year’s end. This unencumbered cash balance will come about from actual and anticipated reimbursed expenses during the year, and from overlay work that was planned and not yet executed so as to conserve funds in case these funds were needed for some unknown emergency purpose during the last quarter of the year. .

DISCUSSION

It is now time to determine for what use the anticipated $270,000 unencumbered cash balance will be used. The following uses are proposed:

? All or a part of it could be used to build the unencumbered cash carry over for the 2002 budget.

? $70,000 to construct the storage building at the new shop site. This building would be build by county employees and equipment with the exception of structural steel erection. This building would house surplus property awaiting the next county auction. This surplus property is presently housed in semi trailers parked at the 2711 Anderson Avenue shop site. Future county auctions could be held at this building. This would save the considerable cost now associated with moving surplus property from the 2711 Anderson storage site to Pottorf Hall for auction.

? The purchase of a used John Deere JD 690 excavator for $83,000. The public works department presently operates 3 road repair crews with 2 backhoes. The addition of this piece would allow each crew to have a piece of equipment capable of doing excavation thus allowing for more work to be accomplished. So far during this year Riley County has spent about $25,000 renting an additional hoe for the "hoeless" crew.

• Overlay Denison Avenue from the city limits half mile north of Kimball to Marlatt Avenue. This overlay would be 3.5 inches in thickness, and would cost $36,000. This is one of the overlays that was postponed in order to build the unencumbered cash balance.

• Overlay Stagg Hill Road from the city limits (excepting that portion of the county road the city has overlaid earlier in the summer) to Kansas Highway number 18. This overlay would be 2 inches in thickness, and would cost $38,000. This is one of the overlays that was postponed in order to build the unencumbered cash balance.

• If all of the aforementioned projects were undertaken that would leave $91,000 to be used to prepare construction plans for the remainder of the buildings at the shop site. These buildings would be built with a combination of county labor and equipment and contracted labor and equipment. The plans would allow Riley County to comply with the Kansas public building statute. When most of these buildings are constructed the public works department shop could then relocated from the 2711 Anderson site to the west Marlatt site.

FISCAL IMPACT

The fiscal impact is the ’01 unencumbered cash carryover is reduced by the amount of the approved expenditure. The less obvious fiscal impacts are the cost savings associated with the county auction, the cost savings of owning verses leasing the excavator,

The cost savings associated with avoiding deferred maintenance on Denison and Stagg Hill Road. Deferring maintenance is very similar to borrowing money. A $100 deferred maintenance this year becomes a $110 funded maintenance next year.