The Sanilac County Road Commission, like many other Road Commissions around the state, continues to reap the benefit of increased funds, thanks to a gas tax that was approved years ago.
In their most recent Michigan Transportation Fund payment, Sanilac County Road Commission took in $905,000 dollars for October, their second largest payment in the past six years.
The Road Commission took in just under $950,000 dollars in April of last year. To date this year, the Road Commission has taken in $8.2 million dollars with two payments left to come in from the State.
In 2016, Sanilac County Road Commission received over $5.6 million dollars in MTF funds and the total has steadily increased over recent years.
In 2020, the Road Commission received just over $9 million dollars, their largest total ever in MTF funds and are on pace to end 2021 with an even larger total than last year.
Engineer/Manager Robb Falls says the additional funding has allowed the Road Commission to complete additional paving projects on primary roads throughout the county that may have otherwise been put off until a later date.
Portions of the MTF funds have also been transferred to other operating accounts within the Road Commission.
Sanilac Road Commission has also received nearly $1.1 million dollars for the month of September for State Maintenance Reimbursements, work that the County does on State owned highways and right-of-ways.
The $1,076,562.16 reimbursement payment is the largest the Road Commission has received to date. A large portion of the payment comes from work being done along the shoreline of Lake Huron near the Washington Road park that has serious erosion issues.
On behalf of the state, Road Commission workers have placed hundreds of tons of large anchor rock, clay and topsoil to slow the erosion that at one point, was threatening the integrity and safety of Lakershore Road, south of Port Sanilac.
