Council caucus holds $2.5 million road budget steady pending comprehensive three-year street evaluation; sidewalks flagged as a key constraint

City public-works staff told the Erlanger City Council Caucus on Oct. 11 that the road-improvement allocation will remain at $2.5 million for the coming year while staff completes a comprehensive evaluation of street conditions and builds a long-range resurfacing plan.

"The answer was not yet. The answer was please give us time, in order to do the evaluation of all of the roads and be able to build out the long range planning of our road reconstruction and resurfacing plan," a city staff member said, explaining why staff recommended holding the $2.5 million figure while completing a full review. Staff said the city changed its approach in recent years from large-scale concrete reconstruction toward milling and overlay resurfacing to stretch the budget and touch more streets each fiscal year.

Public-works staff said that sidewalk projects have been a significant factor constraining how many streets the city can address in any one year: staff noted an earlier plan that had roughly $800,000 earmarked for sidewalks in the street program, and a separate annual sidewalk line-item of $200,000. Staff described the sidewalk program as "underfunded" relative to the backlog and said sidewalks were previously not the city's responsibility until roughly eight years ago; that change increased the city's maintenance obligations.

Staff also described a new software inspection regimen that will put every street on a three-year inspection cycle; traffic counters funded by council are currently gathering volume and weight data to help prioritize arterial and sub-collector streets. Staff said the city saved $273,000 by performing project administration in-house on a public-works facility but acknowledged the department was stretched during that work and needs to finish its long-range street-improvement planning.

Council members urged that the plan be published in a way that balances transparency with realistic expectations—the staff cautioned against publishing a far-future, fixed 10- or 40-year list because annual priorities and funding changes can shift. No vote occurred to change the $2.5 million figure during the caucus; staff said the evaluation’s results could lead to an increased request in the FY27 budget depending on findings.