The Williamson County Commissioner Court will hold a workshop on Tuesday, March 5, during their regularly scheduled meeting in order to determine how to allocate the remaining $20 million of the $275 million approved by voters in 2013 for road improvements.
Mike Weaver with Prime Strategies, the county’s road bond management company, informed the Court that the 2013 road bonds have funded 60 initial projects that were listed as needed and a few additional projects that were identified after the program was initiated.
Several factors were attributed to how the county was able to complete so many projects with $20 million still available. Mr. Weaver mentioned that a few projects had received funding through the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO). In addition, the county’s general engineering consultant HNTB instituted a constructability review of all projects reducing the change order rate to 3{a77561a3d577901ee15dca150fea59fe3467aeb2007c1dd097ee2f4c696e6096}, compared to other entities that are between 8 to 10 percent. Finally, some projects came in below the original engineering estimates.
Commissioner Cynthia Long, who serves as vice-chair on the CAMPO board, added, “There will be another CAMPO call for projects this fall. I want to position the County well for that call by having construction ready projects, so to the extent that we can leverage those remaining dollars towards engineering and getting projects teed up and ready to go, that should help us in that award process.”
The Commissioners Court also discussed appointing a Williamson County Citizen’s Bond Committee to discuss future needs for roads and parks. For prior bond programs, a bond advisory committee was created with each commissioner naming two people to serve on the committee and the County Judge selecting the committee chair. County Judge Bill Gravell proposed that the Commissioners Court discuss this further during the March 5 workshop and to come with possible names of individuals willing to serve on an advisory committee.
“We have been able to greatly improve safety and mobility in Williamson County through the road bond program,” stated Judge Gravell. “However, we are growing at a rate of 120 people a day, and we have to consider the future and our future mobility needs.”
“The Commissioners Court approved the long-range transportation plan that established the ideal total build-out of our county,” said Commissioner Valerie Covey. “Because we have this plan, I think we should focus on it. The court, along with the public, have discussed the areas of growth and the locations of future roadways. Currently, we have lines on a map, but it is incumbent to the success of our county that we implement the adopted long-range transportation plan.”
In elections in 2000 and 2006, Williamson County voters approved road bonds totaling $578 million. A total of 298 lane miles were constructed and 175 new capacity lane miles were added. Since 2004, the County has been able to attain a net debt service savings of $105,112,844 through refinancing and cash defeasances. The 2013 road and park bonds did not impact the county’s debt service tax rate of $0.1675 per $100 of valuation.
The road and park bond workshop will be held Tuesday, March 5, during the Commissioners Court meeting which begins at 9:30 a.m. on the second floor of the historic courthouse, 710 S. Main Street, in Georgetown. Agendas for the meetings can be found here: https://agenda.wilco.org/agenda_publish.cfm
