Gage County Board OKs new budget, short and long range road plans

BEATRICE – The new budget and the one-and-six-year road plan both received approval Wednesday, by the Gage County Board.

The roughly $62 million budget carries an increased property tax request, but a lower tax rate…owing to an 11.66 percent jump in property valuation this year. Gage County’s tax rate for general operations drops from about 29.34 cents, to 26.66 cents….on a property tax request totaling just over $11.2 million. Board Chairman Erich Tiemann says that’s about a 1.48 percent hike in tax request.

"Our costs are up more than that one-point-four eight percent. The way we've done this is watching what we spend, how we do things, how we operate. We've been very aggressive the last several years in mill and overlays, structure replacements and bridge replacements through grants and leveraging grant money."

The new one-and-six-year road plan of the county includes accounting for the bridge replacement project going on at the east edge of Pickrell. Highway Superintendent Mark Kuhnke spoke about some of the major work in the initial year of the plan.

"The Christ Lutheran and Odell blacktop overlay is something huge with that grant that Ms.(Emily) Haxby won. We're in preparation for that. We have two structures that we'll be replacing on South 25th....that first mile south of Highway 41. Those smaller structures will be replaced with CMP tubes. We have another half a dozen or so tubes that just came in at the beginning of this week...so we'll be replacing other structures in the county."

Some repair work could be done on the Rockford Road, depending on budget funding. Officials are still hoping that the road will eventually be a state mill and overlay project.

Kuhnke provided an update on the Pickrell project near Southwest 2nd and West Pickrell Road. Rebar has been placed on the deck of the structure.  "I also spoke to the project manager. They are planning on pouring Friday morning at seven a.m., the walls and the deck....roughly 280 (cubic) yards."

Paving work could begin next week. An unsafe bridge is being replaced with triple concrete box culverts.  The project is now at 30 working days, and given favorable weather, Kuhnke says the work could be completed about a week ahead of schedule.