A review of the Starke County Highway Department’s finance report fared a little better than expected this year with the loss of gas tax revenues due to COVID-19. That’s according to Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler who discussed the Motor Vehicle Highway (MVH) and Local Roads and Streets (LRS) distributions with the Starke County Commissioners last week.
He said the revenue loss from the MVH distribution is about five percent which is $135,000 less than the highway department expected to get this year in distributions. In the LRS distribution, Ritzler said the county will see about a 4.5 percent loss, or about $15,000.
“The good news is we were able to do a complete road program and then some,” commented Ritzler. “Also, we’re going to be adding on to our reserve budget – MVH by about $100,000 and LRS by about $50,000. We were able to weather the storm as far as the loss due to COVID.”
Ritzler said there may be further concern about gas tax losses in the 2021 budget.
“We reduced next year’s budget by $300,000. Last month I was thinking maybe we reduced it too much, but now that COVID looks like it’s resurging we may have another loss in the gas tax. We’ll be in good position to weather any storm that comes our way as far as the budget for next year.”
Ritzler said he will watch the numbers carefully to ensure the county is doing work to the satisfaction of county residents with the funds they have.
