County Highway Departments To Receive Additional State Funding

Some $3.3 billion is set to be dispersed among county highway departments as a result of the Transportation Modernization Act.

Brett Howell is the leader of the Tennessee County Highway Officials Association. He explained the impact to local counties at the Dale Hollow RPO meeting Thursday morning.

Howell said the act takes initial steps to address both short-term goals and long-term goals.

“As grateful as we are we’ve got to create sets of data that go from our current ability to provide services and affect our assets at the county level,” Howell said. “To being able to show that once this money’s spent, we still have a great need.”

However, Howell said statewide there is around $4.3 billion needed to address county transportation needs. He said that is based on the projects reported to the TACIR since 2017.

Howell said county highway departments have been needing additional funding for some time. He said the growing number of electric vehicles in the state, the impact of inflation and fuel efficiency have continued to budget restraints for these departments.

“From county highway’s standpoint this is a huge win for us because this is something we’ve argued for this for many, many years but the work’s not done,” Howell said. “Because as I said earlier, the Transportation Modernization Act is not the silver bullet. It’s an absolute positive first step of what we hope to be many to come.”