Clay County Commission

Dan Haglund

A few changes for 2024 but no major requests were made by Clay County engineer Justin Sorum presented his Clay County Highway Department budget proposal to the Clay Board of Commissioners on Tuesday in Moorhead.

After submitting a request for two replacement walk-and-roll packers, which have been used on county road graders since 2008-09, Sorum presented the rest of his proposal.

The two new walk-and-roll packers come at a cost of $55,755, and their purchase was quickly approved by the board.

Sorum believes the two replaced pieces of equipment can be resold for about $16,000 on an online marketplace, which he has previously used to buy and sell equipment for the county.

Sorum also presented a letter of support from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which applied for a federal grant for a carbon-reduction snow fence from Moorhead to Alexandria. He would like Clay County to send a letter of support in response. Sorum explained that studies show a marked lessening of snow plowing necessary on snow-fenced sections.

“I think it’s very evident the impact that snow fences had along the interstate (94) and Highway 10,” Sorum said. “I just think the letter would be a good show of support from the county.”

The board approved a letter of support for the MNDot project request.

Moving on to the budget, Sorum said his department is broken down into four sections: Maintenance, construction, administration and shop.

Under maintenance, a request is being made for $102,003 to add two additional employees.

“Over the past couple of years we’ve relied on part-time people in both the summer and wintertime, “Sorum said.”In the winter we have 11 motor graders and 11 trucks, so 11 different districts. The past couple years we haven’t been fully staffed, so when we’ve had big snow events our maintenance supervisors had to sit in a plow, which is not what we want to be doing.”

The two additional drivers would bring this driving crew to a full staff of 11. Sorum adds that he’d in turn be able to reduce his part-time budget for drivers by about $30,000.

Sorum presented that the overtime and on-call budget has been increased substantially in response to a long, harsh winter of snow plowing and maintenance needs.

The road materials budget increased $90,000 to a total of $1,050,000, which pays for road gravel.

“The reason I’ve increased this one a little more than in the past is we’ve only gotten one competitive gravel bid, and if we we’re to get that we probably wouldn’t get gravel,” Sorum said.

Roadway maintenance costs are also proposed to increase $50,000.

Sorum also updated the board that just two annual $400,000 payments remain from the 40th Avenue road project from some years back.

Under the construction budget, Sorum said there are two major structures waiting on the bridge bonding wait list. He said municipal construction is up from last year, and with $900,000 for this year, $500,000 goes the 11th Street underpass project and $400,000 for the 45 project.

Commissioner Kevin Campbell, Dist. 4, asked where in Solum’s budget that the wheelage tax, which is $10 per vehicle in Clay County upon annual tab renewal, is reconciled. It couldn’t be immediately located among the budget hard copy pages.

In administration, the main budget issues were either static from the previous year or nominally varied.

In the shop budget, the needs remained fairly similar and the overtime portion is up due to a recapture of what was already spent in the last year. Equipment repair and maintenance is also up, and for the same reasons.

“We had a lot of breakdowns this year and parts are expensive,” Solum said.

Solum said fuel costs are down from a year ago, so he’s requesting $50,000 less for that in the shop budget.