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Infrastructure projects seek $11M in state funding for 2019
By JUSTIN DENNIS
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning and Trumbull counties and several municipalities are competing for more than $11 million in Ohio Public Works Commission grant and loan funding for infrastructure projects in 2019.
Forty-five entities outlined those projects before the commission’s locally led District 6 Public Works Integrating Committee Tuesday morning at the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments offices. Officials presented 57 projects with a total cost of about $39.3 million now under review for the 2019 funding cycle, said Ed Davis, Eastgate transportation asset manager.
Commission funding available for 2019 projects totals about $8 million in grants and $3 million in loans, Davis said. Officials are seeking a total about $12.5 million in grants and about $4 million in loans for next year’s projects. Communities have raised about $22.7 million in local funds for the projects.
The projects are ranked by a point system that accounts for nearly a dozen factors, including the target area’s condition, the amount of local funds committed and the project’s local or regional impact – the last of which has yet to be factored into the scores. Scores will change as the review process continues through December, when the finalized OPWC applications are submitted. Funds will be awarded in July 2019.
The commission funded 44 projects in the region last year, Davis said.
“The big ones are always the counties, Youngstown, Warren ... usually the larger dollar amounts [go] to those bigger communities,” he said.
Mahoning County is seeking a grant of about $2.5 million for about 25 miles of road and bridge safety updates expected to cost about $3.2 million, a larger project than the county usually brings before the commission, said Patrick Ginnetti, Mahoning County engineer.
The updates affect 10 of the county’s 14 townships, he said, and will hit Southeast River and Ellsworth roads in Milton and Ellsworth; Lipkey Road in Jackson; Four Mile Run Road in Austintown; Spitler Road in Poland; Shields and Tippecanoe roads in Boardman; Raccoon Road in Canfield; 12th Street and sections of Middletown Road in Smith and Goshen; sections of Pine Lake Road in Goshen; a section of Western Reserve Road in Ellsworth and Goshen; and Columbiana Road in Springfield.