Bart Mercer
Elmore County Commissioner
District 4
During this year’s Alabama legislative session, Representative Reed Ingram and Senator Clyde Chambliss led the effort that resulted in the passage of a package of infrastructure funding sources known as the Rebuild Alabama Act. As a result of the experience Representative Ingram and Senator Chambliss had in the past as county commissioners, their knowledge helped guide the process to develop new resources to maintain local and state infrastructure.
One recurring theme in the Rebuild Act is accountability. One such requirement placed on using County Rebuild Alabama Funds is that each county must identify and approve a plan detailing all the projects that will be funded each fiscal year prior to August 31 of each year. At the July 22, 2019 Elmore County Commission meeting, we approved our first County Transportation Plan that will be funded by FY2020 Rebuild Alabama revenue. The resurfacing and preservation projects total more than $630,000 and are only possible because of the additional revenue made available through the Rebuild Alabama Act.
In the near future, we will begin seeing signs placed along county roads that will be resurfaced with Rebuild Alabama funds. There are other projects being planned utilizing other revenue streams within Rebuild Alabama funding that will include more than resurfacing projects.
Passage of Rebuild Alabama included providing a large amount of technical information to our legislators. This information was provided by many very engaged county engineers across the state along with their support staff. I want to bring special attention to Elmore County’s Engineering staff led by Richie Beyer and Luke McGinty who spent a great amount of time providing very clear data on the transportation infrastructure needs we have in our county and state. Elmore County personnel were very engaged in this entire process, and we greatly appreciate their efforts which will benefit Elmore County citizens as well as citizens across our state.
Even with this new infrastructure preservation revenue available, a very large annual deficit remains if we are to properly maintain our roads and bridges. However, this new revenue will go a long way in our effort to provide the best maintained and safest transportation system possible.