Sarah Eischens, left, the Sentence to Serve (STS) district supervisor, and Tom Hennis, the area crew leader for STS, give the Faribault County commissioners an update on the STS program for the past year.

Rising oil prices are affecting Faribault County’s road plans.

“The price of bituminous mix has risen from $60 per ton to $72 per ton due to the higher oil prices,” Public Works director Mark Daly told the Faribault County commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 15. “I believe it is the direct result of decisions made by those in power and it has hurt people living in the rural areas. We are seeing the effect of the Keystone Pipeline closing. The low bid for bituminous is 14 percent higher than last year.”

So what does it mean for the road reconstruction projects scheduled for Faribault County?

“We had budgeted for higher prices. This year will not be affected,” Daly explained. “There is a project I had hoped we could do in 2023 which will now be pushed back to 2024. The higher prices will definitely impact the projects scheduled for 2024.”

Daly expressed his concern that prices will remain high for the foreseeable future.

“That is the word I am hearing from my contact at Ulland Brothers,” Daly said. “He believes higher prices will be here for years.”

Daly said the work scheduled for County State Aid Highways 21, 28, 29, 30 and 31 will still happen this year.

“We will also resurface the Unity Trail from the water tower in Blue Earth out to the rest stop,” he noted.

The only company to bid on the 2022 overlay projects was Ulland Brothers.

“The majority of the work is in the eastern part of the county,” Daly mentioned. “Ulland Brothers operates out of Albert Lea so these projects are next door for them.”

A bid of $7,897,448 for the 2022 overlays was approved. The engineer’s estimate had been $6,846,290 and the budgeted amount was $7,580,963.

The County Board also approved a bid from Midwest Contracting in the amount of $1,647,172 for the replacement of four county bridges.

“All four will be box culverts,” Daly commented. “The bid price came in lower than the budgeted amount of $1,658,858.”

In other road business, the board approved a resolution accepting $497,135 in Local Bridge Replacement Program grant funds.

The commissioners also passed a resolution concerning the five-year bridge plan which requests financial assistance for eligible approach, grading and engineering costs on township bridges, as provided by law.

“This is a list of over 25 bridges which the county has identified as being a high priority for replacement, rehabilitation or removal within the next five years,” Daly explained.

Faribault County Sheriff Mike Gormley was also at the meeting to ask the commissioners to accept the State of Minnesota Judicial Branch’s Safe and Secure Courthouse Initiative Grant.

“We first talked about this last November when we decided to apply for this grant,” Gormley reminded the commissioners. “This grant, which is in the amount of $3,159, will pay 50 percent of the cost of two walk-through metal detectors and two hand-held metal detectors.”

In voting to accept the grant, the County Board also directed the sheriff and county coordinator to proceed with the purchase of the metal detectors utilizing the grant funds for half of the cost and general capital improvement funds for the other half.

“The two walk-through units will replace two machines we got from the federal building in Minneapolis over 20 years ago,” Gormley said. “The new machines have castor wheels so they can be moved more easily.”

Sentence to Service (STS) district supervisor Sarah Eischens came to the meeting, along with Thomas Hennis, the area crew leader for STS, to provide commissioners with an update on the STS program and provide the commissioners with a report from the last quarter of 2021.

Eischens explained things are picking up again after slowing down because of the pandemic.

“We are now able to get more crews out than we have since COVID-19 began,” Eischens commented. “We have scaled back the size of the crews because of COVID, but we will reevaluate the situation each month. We are hoping to have the crews back at full strength by this spring.”

Gormley said he was satisfied with the program.

“Tom (Hennis) has always been good to work with,” Gormley mentioned.

Board member Tom Loveall shared his thoughts on the STS program.

“I have never had a problem with Tom or what happens at the local level,” Loveall noted. “My problem is with the state and the way they treat us in regards to our contract with them. We did not get all of the services we should have during the pandemic but the state never made any adjustments in our payments.”

Also at the meeting, the board voted to apply for a Help America Vote Act (HAVA) Grant.

“This grant will enable us to purchase new election software,” county auditor/ treasurer Darren Esser, said. “We have been notified by our election vendor the upgrade has a price tag of $10,889.”

The amount of the HAVA grant application will be for $12,024 to cover the cost of the software and the IT support needed to apply for the grant.

The commissioners also:

• Were introduced to Jennifer Howard, who will be assisting Faribault County Economic Development Authority (EDA) specialist Annie Nichols.

• Approved the training requests of Dustin Anderson and Merissa Lore of the Faribault County Drainage Department to attend the Minnesota Association of Drainage Inspectors Annual Meeting and Conference.