CROTHERSVILLE
Work on 14 paving projects in Crothersville has been completed.
Now, town officials are looking at the next round of grant funding to take care of other streets in need of paving.
Brad Bender with FPBH Inc., the town’s engineering consultant, said in 2019, there will be two rounds of the Community Crossings matching grant program — one in the spring and one in the fall. Communities can only apply once, though.
The application process opened at the beginning of August and closes Sept. 15. Grants will be awarded in November, and those receiving funding will have work starting in March or April.
Once again, a 25 percent match will be required from the grant recipients.
Bender said FPBH will look over the town’s street inventory and ratings and determine which ones are in most need of paving.
Council President Danieta Foster said the gravel portion of Walnut Street, which the town accepted in the fall of 2017, needs to be paved. Bender said since Industrial Way is used a lot by traffic from the industries on the south side of town, that might be worth including in the next project.
“These are things we’ll have to start thinking through,” Bender said.
All-Star Paving of Seymour was the lowest of five bidders ($374,116.43) for the most recent paving project, which was the first time for Crothersville to receive a Community Crossings grant.
The town received $423,406.10 to put toward the project, which included milling and paving of streets and adding Americans with Disabilities Act-approved ramps, storm pipes and inlets where needed.
With All-Star’s bid coming in much lower than anticipated and being lower than the town’s awarded funding, the 25 percent match was lower than anticipated.
The state rolled over the leftover money to distribute in 2019.
This year, a record $150 million in state matching funds for local road projects was awarded to 396 Indiana cities, towns and counties as part of the Next Level Roads: Community Crossings Initiative.
A record 467 communities applied for funds, and that was a 48 percent increase from 2016, according to a news release from the Indiana Department of Transportation.
INDOT estimates $190 million in matching funds will be available for local communities to apply for this year to do projects in 2019.
Community Crossings was created by the Indiana General Assembly in 2016. Funds for the program are awarded from the state’s local road and bridge matching grant fund, according to INDOT.
To qualify for funding, local governments must provide local matching funds — 50 percent for larger communities or 25 percent for smaller communities — from a funding source approved for road and bridge construction. They also must submit an INDOT-approved asset management plan for maintaining existing roads and bridges.
Through the two years of the program, nearly $300 million has been awarded.
State law requires annually that 50 percent of the available matching funds be awarded to communities with a population of 50,000 or fewer, according to INDOT.
State lawmakers identified long-term funding for Community Crossings as part of House Enrolled Act 1002, passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb in April.