The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is allocating $468 million to Lawrence County municipalities in liquid fuel funds for the upkeep of roads and bridges.
This year’s funding, distributed to municipalities once a year in March, comes from state gas tax revenues and helps municipalities pay for things like snow removal, road repaving and other upgrades and bridge inspections.
Municipalities in Lawrence County in total will receive $3,190,646 this year, a slight increase from last year’s $3,905,784. The total includes a fee imposed by PennDOT for certain municipalities for bridge inspections and funds set aside for equipment.
The City of New Castle will receive $700,454, the largest allocation of the county’s 27 municipalities.
The amounts allocated for each township and borough in Lawrence County this year are:
•Townships — Hickory, $116,900; Little Beaver, $108,249; Mahoning, $160,165; Neshannock, $391,386; North Beaver, $282,675; Perry, $114,654; Plain Grove, $86,706; Pulaski, $181,041; Scott, $112,426; Shenango, $306,684; Slippery Rock, $205,401; Taylor, $56,378; Union, $197,448; Washington, $69,372; Wayne, $131,037 and Wilmington, $144,261.
•Boroughs — Ellwood City, $245,578; New Beaver, $92,181; New Wilmington, $57,752; Ellport, $43,756; Bessemer, $36,372; South New Castle, $27,152; Wampum, $23,302; Enon Valley, $11,479; Volant, $4,309 and SNPJ, $3,515.
MORE FUNDING SOURCES
In addition to this distribution, local officials can take advantage of several other ways to add to the funding to improve their infrastructure.
The Lawrence County commissioners receive a separate liquid fuels allocation biannually in June and in December. Because the county does not maintain any roads, the sole use of the funds for the county is for the maintenance of its 27 bridges. Any money left over is distributed to local municipalities by inviting them to submit requests for specific projects.
Commissioner Chairman Dan Vogler said the county planning office is sending letters to all municipalities with an application for the funds.
The deadline to submit the applications is 3:30 p.m. April 30.
The commissioners and planning staff will review the applications in early May and determine if the proposed projects meet the state liquid fuels standards, Vogler said.
The dollar amount each municipality would receive from the county allocation would depend on how many applications it receives, he said.
“The more applications we get, the fewer dollars each municipality requesting the funds will receive,” Vogler said.
When the municipalities complete their projects, they are to notify the county, which will forward the information to PennDOT.
Counties by resolution also can opt to implement a $5 fee for each vehicle registered to an address within the county and those funds would be designated to go to the municipalities to help maintain their roads and bridges. Currently, 24 out of 67 counties are implementing the fee and $293.8 million has been collected and distributed.
Lawernce County collected the fee beginning in 2021 until last year when it was repealed by Vogler and Commissioner Chris Sainato in a split vote. Commissioner Dan Kennedy voted to keep the fee, which had the support of several township officials.
Vogler, who consistently voted against imposing the fee and will not seek reelection in three years, noted the majority of counties have chosen not to levy the fee.
“When we get a new board of commissioners in 2028 if a majority of that board chooses to re-implement the fee, they can do so,” he said, noting a few other counties also had implemented the fee, then repealed it.
David Sanko, president of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, emphasized the importance of the vehicle registration fee.
“With township and local governments responsible for two-thirds of Pennsylvania’s road miles, we recognize the critical role of liquid fuels funding in maintaining our roads. However, as vehicles are more fuel-efficient, these funds are diminishing, so we are optimistic for the EV fee implementation to be successful and the additional revenue they will bring to our local governments,” he said in a PennDOT news release.
Additionally, to get road maintenance revenues, local governments may apply for low-interest loans from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank, which helps fund and accelerate transportation projects as well as spur economic development.
Pennsylvania has nearly 121,000 miles of public roads. More than 2,500 municipalities manage about 78,000 miles of those roads and more than 6,600 bridges.