Street repair fund is full of potholes

The Street Maintenance Fund for the City of Sisters is in need of repair.

According to City Manager Eileen Stein, available funds have declined while maintenance and projected repair needs have gone up.

At a September 30 Sisters City Council workshop, Stein said that when she came to Sisters in April, 2002, no up-to-date inventory of street conditions existed. She said, "I didn't know if we were headed towards an incline or towards a cliff."

Without knowing the condition of the city's streets, no projection could be made for maintenance costs. So the city has been transferring from the General Fund as needed.

To date, outside money for street repairs has come from a share of state gas taxes and a sharing of county timber tax collections. But state gas tax contributions have dwindled to about 20 percent of the cost of street upkeep and timber sales, which had provided Sisters with $25,000 annually, have disappeared.

The condition of the street fund was pretty much summed up by City Finance Officer Emma Sivers: "The (Street Maintenance) Fund has always been in bad shape and it's getting worse."

Stein stated a need for $100,000 per year for street maintenance.

Stein presented a color-coded map of the city streets. Most of it was coded in yellow to represent resurfacing done during sewer construction. She emphasized that all of those roads, resurfaced during 2000-01, would likely deteriorate at the same rate. She added that her hope was that a plan could be implemented to reduce the impact of all that maintenance at the same time.

Possible solutions discussed at the workshop were state funding from the Oregon Transportation Investment Act of 2003 ($8 per capita), a user fee, using a portion of franchise fees (electric, cable, telephone) and/or water and sewer receipts and cell tower rental fees.

Stein said a commonly used source of street maintenance funds is a local gas tax, generally ranging between three and 10 cents per gallon. A user fee on the street system is also a possibility.

Mayor Dave Elliott asked the council for an infusion into the street fund as soon as possible so that funds could be accumulating toward the time they are needed. His hope was for a solution by the end of this year.