With a revenue stream of about $5 million a year, the Seymour Redevelopment Commission has funded several major projects including renovations to One Chamber Square and construction of Crossroads Community Park and the Burkart Boulevard south bypass over the years.

The commission also has provided funding for the Jackson County Learning Center, the ongoing renovation of a historic building at the corner of Third and Chestnut streets into the Seymour Museum Center and other downtown improvements.

One of its ongoing commitments has been to provide matching funds so the city can apply for up to $1 million from the state’s Community Crossings Matching Grants programs each year. That program requires a one-to-one match.

In November, the state awarded $102 million in grants from that program and the city received $839,551.48. With the matching grant from the redevelopment commission, the city will have nearly $2 million to spend on road work in the coming months.

On Monday, the commission reaffirmed by a 4-0 vote that commitment for 2022 during a meeting at city hall after Mayor Matt Nicholson gave an update on what the city has accomplished toward an on-going program to improve the city’s more than 105 miles of streets and roads.

“It’s a chance for us to take our roads from a 4.-point something in 2014 to almost a 6.8 rate right now,” Nicholson said of a statewide system that ranks street and road conditions in communities.

“So RDC has managed to accomplish about a 2-point increase on a 10-point scale. The ones that are dragging us down are the concrete roads which cost roughly four times as much to repair. So every year we say ‘Here’s a half mile of asphalt to go with X-number of miles of asphalt.’”

From a long-term planning standpoint, commission Vice President Nate Tormoehlen asked if it was going to be an ongoing commitment for years or would there be a time when the matching funds perhaps could come from some other funding source.

“These are necessary projects but it’s not investing in something that’s going to have a return necessarily,” Tormoehlen said.

Nicholson said the projections he was given from the previous administration puts the road work out a few more years.

“I am going to go with four (years) as a conservative number,” he said. “Realistically I think it will be a little shorter than that, but in 2016 when we really started focusing on trying to improve the road network they were looking at 10-year plan. I think we can do it a little quicker, but I think you’ll always have some investment.”

Nicholson said in the future there is the potential for other funding sources, especially if he can achieve a couple of his goals. The first is making sure the city has 180 days cash on hand and the second is balancing the budget — both obtainable in the near future, he said.

“Then we can start rolling some of these things into revenue bonds to be able to take it off your shoulders and bring it back to just straight every day taxpayers,” Nicholson said. “That ability is out there.”

The redevelopment commission is responsible for investing revenue from the city’s tax increment finance districts to improve the city. Its funding comes from tax increment finance revenue generated from the Burkart Tax Allocation area, which consists of the Eastside Industrial Park and Cummins Seymour Engine Plant.

When allocating funding, the commission focuses on industry, the downtown, education and added recently, quality of life to the mix.

The most recent CCMG grant will help fund the reconstruction of Phillips Lane and with the paving of around 5 miles of other city streets. The streets that will be paved using the funding are Third, Sixth, 15th, Brown, Chestnut, McDonald, O’Brien, Oak, Park, Pine and Walnut streets, Hartsell, Montgomery and Nottingham drives, Thompson Road and Windhorst Court.

Contracts for that work are scheduled to be awarded to Dave O’Mara Contractors during the board of public works and safety on Thursday with work to begin in the spring and be completed by early fall 2022.