The City of Jefferson could see another major road project happen as early as next year.

The City Council approved at their most recent meeting an engineering agreement with Bolton and Menk for $141,400 for a road project on East Lincoln Way. City Administrator Scott Peterson says the project would include not only repaving East Lincoln Way from the Milwaukee Depot up to the city cemetery, but also widening the road on the north side up to where the newly installed curbs are located. 

Peterson points out the estimated cost of the project is $740,000 and that several options for payment were discussed by the Council, including issuing a general obligation bond. Peterson says by issuing GO bonds, that would be through the City’s debt service property tax levy.

“The way our debt schedule works out, the amount that would be levied for debt service next year would drop, if we were to do nothing. For the sake of consistent property taxes we may very well want to look at having a debt issuance, and would pay for street projects then through potentially a little bond, and would have the effect then of keeping property taxes pretty constant.”  

Peterson believes keeping property taxes at a consistent level better justifies doing needed road projects like on East Lincoln Way.

“And I think citizens appreciate that. They would like for the opportunity for taxes to go down but they really do not like the idea when property taxes might go down in year one, but they got to go back up in years two and three. So for sake of consistency we can look at this and know that property tax levies can stay fairly stable.”    

Peterson adds this project is still in the design and conceptual phase, but he is hoping to bid the project this winter and have construction start next year.