County looks to pair funding with projects

Published 11:00 am Sunday, April 17, 2022

After the Mississippi Legislature parceled out more than $750 million of federal money for local governments, the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors is working to put that money to use fixing local bridges.

In a work session Thursday, county engineer Richmond Alexander told the board $100 million of American Rescue Plan Act money was appropriated by the legislature for the Emergency Road and Bridge fund to help counties and cities repair infrastructure.

Alexander said he planned to bring several bridge projects to the board to make use of those funds.

“I’m planning on bringing it to the board to get board approval on applications for that,” he said. “Possibly looking at $3 to $4 million of applications for that.”

After an April 1 rule change that allowed counties to spend the first $10 million on any project, the board of supervisors had previously discussed putting some of the county’s $14.38 million ARPA funding toward bridge repairs.

The board previously voted to replace bridges on Zero Road, Dale Drive and two bridges on Lizelia road with ARPA funds. The four bridges are on state aid roads; however the county has allocated all of its state aid funds for this board term. The board elected to use ARPA funds instead of waiting until it receives more state aid funds in 2023.

Alexander said some of the bridges could also qualify for ERBR funds, which would leave the county’s ARPA funds free to put toward other bridges and roads that need repair.

“Some of those will be the bridges we’ve already discussed where hopefully, if any of that gets selected, it just removes the money that has already been approved from the ARPA funds,” he said. “We’ll use the ERBR for that.”

Regardless of the funding source, the bridge projects will be added to the county’s list of bridge projects underway throughout the county.

Current bridge projects include:

•Lizelia Road – under construction;

•Buntin Gunn Road – under construction;

•Byrd-Deorner Road – in the design phase;

•Wildcat Road – in the design phase;

•Murphy Road – in the design phase;

•Royal Road – near being bid out;

•Will Garrett Road – under construction;

•Pine Springs Road – being programed; and,

•Meehan Savoy Road – under construction.