By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Road projects will gobble up about 10 percent of Fayette County's $49 million fiscal 2000 budget.

And that's par for the course, said public works director Lee Hearn. “When you've got a half million dollars worth of just asphalt and you start plugging those kinds of numbers in there, it doesn't take long to add up to some significant dollars,” Hearn said.

Three large projects will eat a good portion of the budget, he said. Those include:

ä Swanson Road, a long-awaited project that will include widening, grading and paving the road. Currently, it's dirt in some places and, where paved, is too narrow and poorly paved to meet county standards, he said.

The project will cover just under a mile, about a half mile of it inside Tyrone. That portion of the work will be a joint effort with the town of Tyrone.

ä Friendship Church Road will be graded and paved along its 1.8-mile length.

ä Improvements to the McDonough Road - County Line Road intersection, including removal of a hill to improve sight distance, turn lanes and a traffic signal.

Using state and county revenues, the department also will repave numerous roads.

Repair and maintenance of the county's 49 bridges and culverts also will consume a large portion of the department's budget for 2000. “Every two years the DOT [state Department of Transportation] inspects all the bridges and advises us if they are OK,” said Hearn. A long list of projects comes out of that process, including replacement of a large creek culvert on Sandy Creek Road, currently underway.

Many of the bridges have to be repainted to halt rust and corrosion in metal parts, including one bridge over the county's drinking water supply, Hearn said, adding that this project will require hiring a specialized contractor.

State experts said one bridge, on Coastline Road over the CSX Railroad, should be replaced if it's used for school bus traffic. Hearn said the Board of Education has stopped using the bridge, and county officials are evaluating to see whether it can be replaced in this year's budget.

Also, talks are ongoing with Clayton County officials concerning repair of bridges over the Flint River, the border between the two counties, he said.

“There doesn't seem to be anything major [in the bridge report],” said Hearn. “The good thing about this is they do it every two years, and we've been pretty good about taking care of them in the past,” he added.

The department's budget is $4.7 million, but Hearn told County commissioners during a recent budget work session that revenues and expenditures in his department fluctuate wildly.

For instance, the 1999 budget was $5.2 million, but recent estimates put actual expenditures at $4.1 million.

Weather, how fast the state comes through with approved funding and other factors affect those figures, Hearn said. Sometimes projects get done early — sometimes they get shuffled into the next year's budget.