Police Jury eyes ‘right-sizing’ funds

Acadia Parish currently has about $1.6 million in “credit” through the state’s “right-sizing” program.
That money can be used to upgrade a parish-maintained road to state highway standards at no expense to the parish.
The catch, however, is that most parish roads are so far “below” state highway standards that the cost to upgrade severely limits the amount of roadway that can be considered.
Acadia Parish is considering asking the state Department of Transportation and Development to revert the right-sizing credit to cash and allow the police jury to decide what roads to repair.
The state currently owns over 27% of the public road mileage in Louisiana; the national average is approximately 19%. Only nine states own a higher percentage of public road miles than Louisiana and only 10 states have larger state highway systems.
The Road Transfer Program was established some years ago as a means to right-size the State Highway System to achieve the national average of 19% state ownership of public road mileage.
DOTD has identified about 5,000 miles of state roads that do not fit the state’s role in the highway network. The program involves transferring these roads, with the money to local governments.
Participation in the program is voluntary. Roads are repaired prior to transfer and the receiving local government is credited for 40 years of routine and capital maintenance which can be applied to any roadway capital projects.
Acadia Parish took advantage of the program early on and accepted Louisiana Highway 1112 into the parish system after repairs were completed by LDOTD.
“We have $1.6 million in credits, but they’re not real simple to use,” Karl Aucoin, parish road engineer, told the Road and Bridges Committee Tuesday night. “It’s going to take a lot of money to upgrade some of our parish roads to state highway standards.”
He added that a number of regulations are attached to the use of the credits.
Aucoin went on to say that some local entities have petitioned LDOTD to convert the credit to actual cash and allow them to decide where to use the funding and to what standard the road is to be upgraded.
On the recommendation of committee Chairman A.J. “Jay” Credeur, the police jury will consider similar action when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday