County Highway engineer Gary Pool pleased with $13 million his department secured for future road projects in the county.
HANCOCK COUNTY — When state officials recently awarded grant monies for road projects five years down the road in 2028, Hancock County was at the top of the list for amount secured.
The 2023 CAT-IV Award monies totaled over $127.68 million statewide. Hancock County officials secured the highest of any area, getting approximately $13.108 million earmarked for several projects in 2028. Auburn was a distant second, landing $9.85 million for road work while Tipton was third, securing some $7.7 million.
“Of the 38 award recipients Hancock County is tops, pulling over 10% of the total grant money,” county engineer Gary Pool said. “I’m very proud of my team and actually gave them a pep talk about that this morning.”
Pool noted he’s pleased with the work his office and team is doing going after grant monies and getting the funding to make county roads in the area better.
“These are tax dollars and we always have the mindset to go out and get those dollars back,” Pool said. “It’s a huge team effort from the council and commissioners to the front line workers at the auditor’s and highway front office.”
Like any good planner, Pool already knows what he’s going to do with the grant money in 2028. He plans to work on two bridges, install two new roundabouts at 350N and 500N along North 700W and work on the the road segment of South 600W from Stinemyer Road with the hopes of addressing the stream flow along that road.
“That road is going to get wider so it will be a lot better,” Pool said. “But, I’ve got to get DNR, (Department of Natural Resources) on board because we’d like to straighten out that stream there if they will allow it because right now that’s a winding, wiggling road that has been that way since the Civil War and we need to straighten out that stream.”
Pool again thanked county leaders for allowing him to size up the county roads and put the grant funding where it is most needed, knowing the county will have to pay its portion of the projects in the 80-20% split.
“The 20% adds up to a lot of money, but cumulative fund for bridges will cover the bridges and TIF monies should cover the roundabouts,” Pool said. “We can nail down the match money for the 600W project by 2028 and the Cum Cap fund should be OK for it.”
Pool wanted to remind county leaders and residents grant money is going down across the board and most recent state budgets slashed grants. Still, his goal has always been to secure at least $10 million a year for the county.
Pool is proud of the fact during his group’s nine years of looking out for county roads, his office has secured $110 million in grant funding. He noted that works out to about $900,000 a month going towards making county roads better.
“It equals out to about $40,000 a day so when people get frustrated, just remember we’re getting our tax dollars back,” Pool said.
However, he noted that the good days don’t always last and harder times for road projects beyond the funds he’s secured might be just around the bend.
“I think a $10 million a year goal might get tough in the future, but when South 600W is done we can ease the pace a bit,” he said.
Pool noted he’s already planning to get 2029 projects ideas together for bids in 2024, but his immediate goal is to close out several county road projects currently underway.
“The roundabout on County Road South 600W by the New Palestine school has been a problem so far this summer,” Pool said. “We hope to finish on time, but we’re not near as far along as I’d like for it to be because we’ve had problem after problem there.”
