Financial Information

Our fund balance is $5,002,000, which is 67% above last year. This increase occurred due to a concerted effort to reduce costs and expand revenues to insure the financial liquidity of the Bay County Road Commission. In addition, new revenues for Economic Development Buyout and GASB 34 accounting changes increased the fund balance by $1,170,000. In a time of increased costs and declining revenues, this became of paramount importance to continue services to the traveling public. The normal revenues increased by $325,710 primarily with the $575,000 in from the State Buyout Program. The total expenditures of $9,866,000, down $2,909,000 from 2001, was due primarily because of a substantial decrease in primary and local heavy maintenance cost as well as a major reduction in capital outlay expenditures.

Overall during 2002, we completed heavy maintenance projects totaling $3,790,000 and bridge improvements totaling $476,000. We also provided routine maintenance on the County road system costing $4,417,000, of which winter maintenance and patching accounted for $1,278,000 of this total. This is down $298,000 from 2001 due to cost reduction measures and a record snowfall in the previous year.

This report also includes townships’ repayments of $1,785,000 for projects that the townships requested and these projects were completed by BCRC forces or a contractor. The Road Commission allows townships the option to spread their payments (costs) over 3 years depending upon type of work performed, and the $1,785,000 income reflects the no-interest financing option offered by the Road Commission. All the repayments from the townships were returned and used on the local road system; however, $1,013,000 was spent on local heavy maintenance due to the cost reduction measures instituted in 2002.

Our local routine and heavy maintenance expenditures decreased by $2,290,000 from 2001. The Local Road Allocation increased slightly by $98,000 from 2001 due to the outgoing Governor’s Executive Order budget cuts diverting MTF funds to other State departments. The five top expense categories for the local routine maintenance are 1) patching; 2) placing and grading gravel; 3) tree and brush removal; 4) ditching; and 5) snow & ice control; which total $1,883,000 or 92% of the local road funds. The breakdown of local road maintenance expenditures can be illustrated below:

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We continue to upgrade our services in virtually all phases of our operation through implementation of the recommendations that have been developed both in-house and through the County Road Association of Michigan (CRAM). We continue to work along side of CRAM to push for better legislation regarding increased total funding, allocation of funding, and jurisdictional formula issues, ie. ownership of the roads in each county.

We enter 2003 with a substantial list of project needs and are faced with a divided State Legislature, debating the organizational structure of road commissions and the funding issues. The unfunded road and bridge needs are still over $55,000,000 and will continue to grow with the current funding levels. Therefore, we need to continue our efforts to communicate the problems we face, at national, state, county, and township levels. In recognition of our financial position improving, we have re-instituted our Building Better Local Roads program and have maintained other policy changes to insure our financial stability in future years.

In keeping with our mission and philosophy which follows: We will strive to maintain and provide the best road system that can be afforded with the limited funds available.