By RORYE O’CONNOR

rorye.oconnor@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — The Jefferson County Highway Committee made several motions to keep its funds tied into Highway Department projects and fees at Wednesday night’s committee meeting.

“It’s a good idea to obligate funds because with the state of affairs the way it is, they’re going to start picking up money wherever they can, unless it’s obligated,” said Jim Laird, Highway Committee chairman.

The Committee moved to recommend to the Jefferson County Board to appropriate $900,000 from unobligated funds to be obligated for Motor Fuel Tax Funds for 2010 County Motor Fuel Tax maintenance, and moved to recommend to the County Board to appropriate funds from unobligated funds to obligated Motor Fuel Tax funds for the County Engineer’s wages from January 1, 2010 through May 31, 2010.

Sandra Wellmaker, executive assistant, mentioned during the meeting that in appropriating $900,000 for Motor Fuel Tax funds, the Committee had repeated actions they’d made in the previous year.

The highway committee announced several current and upcoming projects.

The Spring Garden bridge opened last Friday, one mile southeast of Spring Garden over Gun Creek, information from the highway committee states. The bridge, which cost $325,033.51, is an 80-foot single span prestressed concrete deck beam bridge.

The highway department plans to begin work on the Malecki Road bridge in January 2010. The bridge, which will be constructed by Perry Co. Construction for $493,463, is a 134-foot three span precast prestressed concrete deck beam bridge over the IC Railroad, information states.

The Ken Gray Parkway, a 1.3-mile roadway west of the Interstate 57 Ina interchange that runs to Rend Lake College, is in the works to be refinished. The project will be let by the Illinois Department of Transportation in January 2010, information states, and will include a three-inch asphalt surface, rock shoulders, striping and guardrails.

County engineer Steve Schnake said the highway department has completed five bridges this year, including the Scheller bridge, which was a five-year project that converted a run-down bridge into a road.

He told the committee that in coming years, the department will have to cut back on projects, because the federal government is changing the way funds are disbursed to state and county highway departments, from 70 percent to the state and 30 percent to local, to 80 percent to the state and 20 percent to the local departments. He said the Jefferson County Highway Department will be receiving $160,000 less because of this change.

“We normally average almost four bridges a year, but since we’ve been here, our funding has stayed the same but construction (costs) have doubled,” Schnake said. “The township bridge fund hasn’t gone up for 10 years.”

In other business, the committee:

— Moved to recommend to the County Board to establish an eight-ton weight limit on county roads from January 15, 2010, through April 15, 2010, except on previously established truck routes;

— Approved a submission for the Fox Den subdivision;

— Approved all monthly claims, and;

— Approved the low bidder for fuel, from Davis and Sons regular gasoline at $1.94 and regular diesel fuel at $2.0495. Wayne Hails, committee member, expressed his concerns with purchasing biodiesel from any vendor during the winter months.

“Biodiesel supposedly has the tendency to gel,” he said to the committee Wednesday. “Even premium diesel will gel up in zero weather.”