Beefed-up road allocation highlights town budget

The Town of Port Washington will seek bids to add the final lift of asphalt on two of its roads and will look at other roadwork if there are still funds available, officials agreed Monday.

The move comes after the town approved a 2023 budget last month that includes a beefed-up allocation for roadwork.

The $250,000 allocation includes $100,000 that the town had expected to spend on roadwork last year.

“We didn’t get anything done,” Town Chairman Mike Didier said. “That’s getting rolled over to 2023.”

The Town Board on Monday discussed which roads to repair, ultimately settling on Hawthorne Drive and Norport Drive.

Both roads have one layer of asphalt but need to have a second lift installed.

Didier said he expects the cost will be around $200,000, adding he hopes to have bids for the work in the next 30 days.

If the town still has funds available after those two roads are completed, board members suggested looking at repairs to Highland  Drive, Terry Lane, Sunset Road, Sauk Drive  or Willow Road between highways H and B.

Those are some of the lowest rated roads in the township, officials said.

“Some of these aren’t very long, so they might not take a lot of money,” Supr. Greg Welton said. “It seems like once you have them (construction crews) here, we should  get them taken care of.”

Only three people appeared before the board for the annual budget hearing on Nov. 21.

The budget, Didier said, contains “nothing earth shattering.”

Although the $776,400 expenditure budget increased by 10.6%, that’s largely because of the additional roadwork, he said.

Electors at the meeting approved a levy of $479,000.

The tax rate needed to support the levy is $1.97 per $1,000 assessed valuation, the same as last year and one cent less than the year before that.

“I for one am happy to see that three-year run of the mill (tax) rate staying the same,” one man said. “That’s very good.”

Another man questioned what the town will use its American Rescue Plan Act funds for.

Clerk Heather Krueger noted that the town has five years to spend the money, which is currently earning interest in a separate bank account.

The town has no specific project in mind for the funds, she said, and since the rules on how to spend the money have changed, officials are waiting for a final determination before deciding how to use them.