Streets Continued Problem for Glasgow

It is no secret that Glasgow’s roads are in disrepair. A drive down 2nd Street South will confirm a stretch riddled in potholes, dugouts and cracks. For years the city has contended with the quick pace of roads crumbling and decaying while revenues drop and resources dwindle.

Director of Public Works Rob Kompel and Glasgow Mayor Becky Erickson sat down with the Courier to discuss the city’s 2020 plan for roads and to lament the lack of money to rectify the situation.

To illustrate the problem, Kompel presented a series of past year revenue to road rehabilitation that has taken place since 2016. In that year, the city had $310,867 to spend on road rebuilding. That money was sourced from coal taxes and city assessments that do not go to maintenance. In that year, the city fixed 5th Ave North from Highland Dr to 1st Street North, a total of a few city blocks; East Court Street which amounted to one block; four blocks on 4th Street South; three blocks on 3rd Street South; and nine patches across the city. In total the project totaled over 11 city blocks.

In 2017, the city used a budget of $328,867 to rehab two intersections, over three city blocks and all of Meadow Court. Since 2017, funds for road repair have dropped precipitously to a staggeringly low $72,025 in 2019, which allowed the city to complete a mere one city block and eight separate patches around town.

In 2020, the city projects they will be able to spend $215,000 on include streets, sidewalks, curbs and gutters. Right off the top, $65,000 will go to sidewalks, curbs and gutters since the contract has been in the works for years. A dramatically high portion will also go to the seriously-in-need 2nd Street South—more easily defined as Glasgow’s downtown.

According to Kompel, due to the state of the road and the significant deterioration, those two blocks could consume up to $130,000 of the remaining $150,000. With only about $20,000 left the only other improvement will be made on Ayr Street from Lomond to Eastside School, a stretch of road Kompel described as “really unravelling.”

In other words, the amount of road improvements needed compared to the amount of revenue available through city assessments and fuel tax monies sent from the state create an unmeetable challenge for the city.

“We acknowledge we have a huge issue with the poor condition of our city streets,” said the Mayor. “We will never have the revenue source available to us to rehab all 36.6 miles of Glasgow’s streets and alleys; this is not an excuse just a fact.”

The Mayor added that the issue is not just one facing Glasgow, but is a nationwide infrastructure problem. In fact the Society of Civil Engineers rates the nation a “D” grade for road and street conditions. Glasgow, for their part, is slightly above the norm with a “C” grade on the report. That was not a point celebrated by Kompel who laments the roads conditions like the rest of the city.

Aside from raising the city’s assessments for road improvements—currently residential properties pay $1.34 per 100 square feet of road and businesses pay $6.71 per hundred square feet of road. That, combined with $120,000 from the state fuel tax award, gave the city their $215,000 budget for the year. According to the Mayor, meeting the need would require the state to find alternative revenue streams or increasing the fuel tax across the state.

As for increasing the efficiency of rebuilding streets, Kompel says they are at the mercy of the contractors. Rates and schedules are more or less set by the two street contractors in the state and the approximate $49,000 plus the cost of one city block is all but fixed in place. One reason is that there is no source for asphalt in Northeast Montana which means any project would require a contractor to set up a temporary asphalt plant that in turn increases the cost of a block.

Asked whether the city could bring street rehabilitation in-house, Kompel said it would be difficult if not impossible. “We’re not in the road building business,” explained Kompel. “We don’t have the expertise or the equipment to do that.”

Street maintenance work is a whole different revenue fund and handled by a completely different shop than the contractors redoing the roads in town. Last year the city spent $392,874 on street maintenance alone. That included wages, operating materials, supplies, service expenses for the street department, vehicle and equipment maintenance, oil and fuel, sanding additive materials, street signs, bulk materials for patching, crack sealing, pavement paint, pot hole repair, snow removal, street sweeping, grading roads and alleys, cleaning storm drains and all city vehicle maintenance, which is all done by three city street workers and one foreman.