Over time roadways have wear and tear along with attempts to patch what has been worn down.

Guthrie County Engineer Josh Sebern says that one way to help with the monetary costs of maintaining roads is to apply for grants. Recently he attended a Stuart City Council meeting to discuss some grants that the county has applied for to do work on White Pole Road, as not only Guthrie County, but also the City of Stuart and Adair County share responsibilities and jurisdiction of the road. Sebern tells Raccoon Valley Radio that county engineers across the state are working together to pull in more funding.

“So we have a Grants Coordinator through the County Engineers Service Bureau, and we put together our resources to go after these large federal grants. In this case, this is the Rural Grant and it’s for surfaces, and it was just released. The grant submittal is August 21st, and Guthrie County is looking for $8.3 million for this. For a part of the other counties, we’ll be looking for a total of $24-26 million.”

Sebern adds that the group is hoping to hear back from the federal government sometime between this December and next February to see if they were awarded anything, and that they are being fairly aggressive when applying for any large federal grant when it comes up. He mentions that these grants are highly competitive though, but that they are trying their best to get as much of that money into the state as possible. Sebern explains that this will be the fifth or sixth grant that the group has submitted, and that they have been awarded one, which brought $26 million into the state.