The Great Recession of 2008 caused massive budget shortfalls for the Aurora City Council. Difficult decisions were made, and unfortunately capital projects and transportation maintenance funding were cut in order to keep other departments funded.
Those were difficult times, and hard decisions had to be made. Unfortunately, the decision to cut transportation maintenance did not consider the longer-term negative impact on our roads, particularly on neighborhood streets.
Just 12 years later, Aurora City Council is now faced with another unexpected budget shortfall, and cuts are needed to balance the budget moving forward. During the recession that started in 2008, City Council chose to cut funding for capital projects which included repairing roads and buildings. At the time it seemed like a logical decision because there were so many program and department needs, and there were very few citizen or elected advocates for maintaining asphalt and concrete. Tens of millions of dollars were removed from maintenance needs so the dollars could flow to program needs.
Over the past eight years, funding for road maintenance was slowly restored to its 2008 level and beyond because the Aurora City Council felt it was a priority to restore that funding. In more recent years, City Council has been briefed in detail on the importance of transportation maintenance, and the incremental irreversible damage that occurs in roads where failure to adequately maintain a road has taken place.
In difficult budget times ahead, I hope that City Council will avoid cutting our current level of funding for road maintenance. By now, all City Council members are aware that our current level of funding for city streets is short nearly $20 million annually. If the City Council reduces this funding to balance the current budget shortfall, we will fall even further behind on the road condition scale.
Unknown to most Aurora residents is the fact that our neighborhood streets receive little or no upkeep because of the existing shortfall we have in the budget for fixing roads. What this means is that at some point in the future, neighborhood streets are going to start crumbling, and there won’t be any money available to replace them. If we had the money to maintain neighborhood streets, the end of life cycle in various subdivisions could be extended a great number of years, and we could start replacing streets in the older neighborhood subdivisions. Because we are already falling behind each year on budgeting for roads, I believe it is imperative for the Aurora City Council to make sure that there are no cuts to our current level of funding for street maintenance. And hopefully, after recovery from the COVID-19 budget dent, City Council can figure out a way to fund the $20 million annual shortfall we currently have in our roadway maintenance.
Bob LeGare is a former at-large Aurora City Council representative and mayor.