Don’t Touch the CIRB (Special Update)

[Mike Pearson]

It is critical that everyone who reads this contact as many of our senators as possible!

Don’t Touch the CIRB
By John Smaligo and Ray Vaughn

Prudent Oklahoma’s taxpayers would not spend their retirement funds to pay their monthly bills, bandaging a temporary need with an irreversible permanent solution; but that very improper scenario is potentially underway today at our state capitol.
In 2006, the new Republican-majority House of Representatives recognized the sorry state of our roads and bridges. They decided to reverse decades of Democrat neglect, and pushed through significantly improved road funding. Tulsa Rep. Mark Liotta’s comprehensive 2006 road plan not only doubled funding for the state’s infrastructure, but also for the county system, without raising taxes or increasing debt. Funding would come from any new dollars flowing into state coffers, without touching existing funding streams. Miraculously removing legislators from the road project selection process, the Legislature passed, and Governor Henry signed the Liotta plan into law. Our state has reaped the benefit of hundreds of bridges replaced or improved, and thousands of miles of improved roadway over the last nine years.
The County portion of Rep. Liotta’s plan is known as County Improvements for Roads and Bridges, or CIRB. The CIRB fund embodies a mandated carryover provision allowing counties to accumulate funding up to five years for specific projects. This five year carryover statutorily acknowledged the need for accumulation of advance funding for larger projects, projects which poorer counties could not otherwise accomplish. Most of Oklahoma’s 77 counties are road-funding poor. All CIRB funds are allocated to the most critical needs across Oklahoma, fixing the worst of the worst first, as counties must prioritize projects and cooperatively apply for this funding on a per-project basis.
The County Highway System is composed of 83,552 miles of roadway, 70% unpaved and 30% paved (75% of the State’s roadway network), and 13,659 bridges (61% of all Oklahoma’s bridges). Currently 3,271 bridges (24%) are structurally deficient & 496 are obsolete (3.6%) requiring 1.2 billion in replacement costs. The current 5 year CIRB plan includes the replacement of 541 county bridges and reconstruction of 1,050 miles of county roads.
Doing proper maintenance or improvement on roads and bridges requires this kind of accumulation of funds. Most projects are multi-year, requiring engineering plans, cost estimation, right-of-way acquisition, environmental impact studies, utility relocation, navigation of city and county planning models, and finally, construction. Each step requires time and money and cannot be accomplished without a stable, predictable funding plan. CIRB accomplishes predictability and certainty with the rolling 5 year plan and accumulation of necessary funds.
As may be predicted, this accumulation of funds presents a very fat target to understandably nervous legislators who are attempting to fill a temporary budget hole. It may seem logical to take from funds which are already allocated for future projects but remain unspent. However, this robbing of Peter to pay Paul is how we arrived at the bottom of national road and bridge rankings in the first place.
Thirty years ago, the previous legislative leadership began holding road funding at a stand-still for at least two decades to fund various social issues. Consequently, we are now faced with a multi-decade backlog of critical maintenance on both the state and county systems. Delaying maintenance shortens the life-span of our infrastructure and drives up costs. Rep. Liotta’s 2006 road plan was a very conservative, Republican idea which has made tremendous strides in digging us out of this hole. We must stay the course. Let’s not fool ourselves into believing we can take a vacation from fixing and improving our county roads. We’ve made that mistake before, and we’re hitting every bump and chug-hole in that road now. Let’s direct our legislature to find a reasonable funding solution to a temporary hole which does not raid the CIRB funds.
John Smaligo (R) and Ray Vaughn (R) are both former Oklahoma House Members, now serving as elected County Commissioners in Tulsa and Oklahoma Counties respectively.

Logan County projects dependent on CIRB funding:

County Road NS-314 North Pine Street from Waterloo to Charter Oak road

Luther Road from Waterloo 6 miles north to Camp road

County Bridge over Oppossum Creek 7.1 miles south and 2 miles east of Meridian

Charter Oak road road from I-35 east 2.5 miles to Douglas

Simmons road from I-35 east 2.5 miles to Douglas

Luther Road from Camp road north to SH-105