Three-fourths of county engineers reported in a recent Minnesota survey that their roads and bridges have deteriorated due to increased traffic, costs and stagnated state funding.

Mower County Engineer Mike Hanson calls that estimation “pretty accurate.”

“Unfortunately, the deterioration to the infrastructure has been so widespread we have lost a lot of ground in trying to keep up with repairing it,” he said.

Hanson said when he started with the department in 1998, the county had 140 bridges with various degrees of deficiency; about 100 have been replaced since then. However, he explained, about 70 bridges need replacing today.

“It’s kind of like we are fighting a somewhat uphill battle,” Hanson said. “It’s slow because of the funding.

“We’re moving backward,” he said.

According to “Road Report: A Survey of Minnesota’s County Highway Engineers,” conducted by think tank MN 2020, 70 percent of engineers reported increasing property taxes in the past 10 years to meet road and bridge funding challenges.

“County boards have doubled property taxes dedicated to roads and bridges,” said Conrad deFiebre, MN 202 transportation fellow.

The transportation bill passed earlier this year seemed like a triumph for greater Minnesota at the time, but since its passage, skyrocketing oil prices and a levy limit passed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty make the increase seem more like a drop in the bucket than a hefty funding hike.

“The increase we saw in the tax — done very prudently by the legislature — is ultimately an 8-cent tax,” said Hanson, who believes that puts Mower County close to the position they were in 1988.

“No funding increases from 1988 to 2008 really set us back,” he said. “With oil prices, money is worth less. All that material costs more to produce and sell to us.

“Not a lot of expansion, just maintenance,” he said. “We can’t raise the tax levy to offset the increase in fuel prices.”

Hanson said Mower County ranks probably in the middle when comparing its road and bridge status to other counties.

“At this point, our state aid is still higher than our levy,” he said, pointing out the metro area is more dependent on levies that rural areas.

The county received approximately $4 million in state funding, $3 million from the tax levy and local aid, and $500,000 from the town bridge apportionment this year, he said.

Federal funding is competitive in Minnesota; the counties have to fight for the $3-$4 million allocated.

“There isn’t a lot of federal money that comes in,” he said. “We try do our do our best to bring federal funding into Mower County.”