Budgeting for your Infrastructure Needs

Each year, municipalities face questions about funding for infrastructure needs. Where will funds be found for the coming year? What projects have become critical and what projects can be placed lower on the list based on safety and constituent demand? Are taxes raised? Or lowered? Do we search for grants or matching funds? How do we prepare and budget for the coming year? Some years our crystal balls are cloudier than others. This year seems to be a pretty cloudy year as our new President, new Governor, Congress and our State Legislature find their way and navigate the complicated maze of the government.

Based on NC General Statutes, municipalities receive funds each year from the State Street Aid program, better known as the Powell Bill. It is named after the Senator who first sponsored the bill back in 1951. There are deadlines for submitting funding requests and the appropriate documents to the State in order to receive funds. One of the most important tasks is to submit a Powell Bill Map to the State in July of each year.

Municipalities may use Powell Bill funds “only for the purpose of maintaining, repairing, constructing, reconstructing or widening of any street or public thoroughfare including bridges, drainage, curb and gutter, and other necessary appurtenances within the corporate limits of the the municipality or for meeting the municipality’s proportionate share of assessments levied for such purposes, or for the planning, construction and maintenance of bikeways located within the rights-of-way of public streets and highways or for the planning, construction and maintenance of sidewalks along public streets and highways.”

JMTE provides engineering and mapping expertise to municipalities for yearly Powell Bill allocation submissions. Our services include: updating and verifying eligible roads for Powell Bill funding; assessment and inventory of road names, lengths and widths; and the creation of an updated and sealed Powell Bill map with street listings and a certified statement.

JMTE’s submittal to the Town will also include low cost recommendations for projects that may increase future Powell Bill eligibility.

Watch these Videos of the History of Transportation

Project Sheet Updates

Since JMTE began over seven years ago, we have completed hundreds of projects for small governments, developers, home owner’s, attorneys, and other entities and groups. For each of those projects, we create a project sheet. We use these sheets to catalog our work, give to clients and use for our promotions. With our new website design, we have added links to many of these project sheets on our project map. To see the map and our project sheets, click on this link.

If you have questions about any of our projects, please give us a call or send us an email!