An entire county had a road maintenance budget of $1.5MM? I have to call bull.
Dirt roads in the rural areas now have to be paved. Imagine an oil boom in VT. How many roads would have to be paved, bridges widened?
$1.5M does seem awfully low. Maybe they only had one or two paved roads prior to the oil boom?
I know Texas invested heavily in roads, over a period of time, that really paid off in the long run.
Basically the problem is a group of small town administrators who have never had to think or plan big before.
The whole thing has overwhelmed them and they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Not saying I could do better, I am not a county administrator and don’t want to be.
I lived out there and left just as the boom got going. 1.5 million would probably be right for roads alone. Mostly gravel roads with a handful of county blade operators clearing snow and grading gravel surfaces. Most paved surfaces, and there were few, were state or federal hiways.
In the winter we literally drove on ice, many at 55 - 65 mph. This is because the roads were never scraped or salted. This is something pampered big state folks would just cry over. I used to watch out of state truckers drive on this stuff. Slide off the road, roll over. When the ditches were level with snow they never knew where the turn offs were, and just guessed and drove right into a ditch with 3 - 5 feet of snow in it.
So yes, considering how few roads there were, and how little maintenance was done, 1.5 mil is about right.