Crystal City officials plan to spend $750,000 this budget year on upgrades to roads, sidewalks and alleyways.
City Administrator Jason Eisenbeis said that’s the largest road improvement budget the city has ever seen and is up from its typical annual budget of $300,000 to $350,000 for those projects.
The extra funding is partly due to the use tax voters approved in April 2022 that allows the city to charge its 2.25 percent sales tax on online purchases, just like it charges at brick and mortar businesses, he said.
This year’s road improvements will include complete road overlays on North Taylor, Burgess, Ninth and 10th streets; concrete road repair on Parkview and Lake Drive and in the Riverview Bend Estate and Williamsburg subdivisions; asphalt road repair on Bailey Road, Church Place, Bellamy, Missouri Avenue, England Avenue, 15th Street and Riverbluff and on alleyways on Fifth and Seventh streets; and sidewalk repair and ADA ramp installation in multiple areas across the city.
The city just finished its first full fiscal year, from March 31, 2023, to March 31, 2024, with the use tax on the books, and during that year, the city collected $317,509.11 in revenue from the internet-based sales tax, Eisenbeis said, adding that he believes that number will continue to go grow over the years with the increasing prevalence of online shopping.
Eisenbeis said funds from the use tax are not restricted in their use, but city officials have decided to primarily allocate that funding for improvements to roads, sidewalks and alleyways.
He said the city has budgeted $150,000 of the use tax revenue to be used toward those ends, with the remainder to go into the general fund where it can be used to cover fuel and labor costs.
“Since we got that tax, we have used at least half of it specifically toward road improvement line items,” Eisenbeis said.
The rest of the funding for this year’s road improvements will come from the city’s share of a 1/2-cent sales tax for road and bridge improvements, as well as a $250,000 ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance grant, which the city is receiving for the third year in a row. That grant money comes from the Economic Development Corporation of Jefferson County and is used for sidewalk upgrades, Eisenbeis said.
He said the city has a preventative pavement maintenance plan to improve city infrastructure in phases over a projected 10-year period. Part of the plan includes making city sidewalks ADA compliant by creating curb ramps at street intersections. He also said the city has been upgrading sidewalk ramps and then following up the next year in the same area with road repaving.
“They cut the curb out and then they’ve got to patch in the asphalt around the curb at each intersection. So you have nice new handicap ramps and then the next year you have nice new pavement,” he said.
Eisenbeis said the city also has been fortunate over recent years to receive Surface Transportation Program (STP) grants, which typically are 80-20 grants, with federal funds covering 80 percent of the costs and the city providing the other 20 percent.
“When you get the STP grants, they have to be your main corridors. They’re rated on traffic and pedestrian use and all that kind of stuff,” he said.
Eisenbeis said now that all the city’s main corridors have been repaired, city officials plan to turn their attention to repairing streets that haven’t gotten as much attention in recent years.
Crystal City Mayor Mike Osher, who was a proponent of the use tax being passed, said he’s pleased with how the funds are being used.
“It ran for roads, alleys, sidewalks, and that’s what we’ve put it into,” he said.
Osher believes the future of the city’s infrastructure looks bright.
“The city’s in a great position right now and we’re headed in a good direction,” Osher said. “I think everybody’s going to be very impressed with the amount of work we get done this year with our roads, sidewalks and alleyways. And that’s a direct correlation to our use tax because if it wasn’t for the use tax, that stuff wouldn’t get done.”