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Killeen can fund only 25 percent of needed road maintenance

The city of Killeen has plenty of roads that need maintenance, but soon local property owners could be helping foot the bill.

KILLEEN — The city of Killeen has plenty of roads that need maintenance, but soon local property owners could be helping foot the bill. A presentation shown at council Tuesday said the city can only afford to cover 25 percent of its needed road maintenance.

In 2013, Killeen hired Transmap to find out how much maintenance funding they would need each year until 2018. The city did not, however, budget the recommended amount. In 2014, Transmap recommended the city spend $1,792,350. The city budgeted roughly half of that. The recommendation for 2018 was nearly $2 Million, but the city budgeted less than $500,000.

Tuesday, the Killeen City Council directed staff to pay for another road maintenance study which will cost $48,000. Councilman Steve Harris told Channel 6 he did not oppose the new study but is frustrated that the council did not follow the previous recommendations.

"It is completely silly," Harris said. "(In 2013) We had an engineering study done on impact fees and street fees but you had part of the council that didn't like the impact fees and part that didn't like the street fees so they ended up both just getting kicked down the road."

"You come to a point now where it can't be kicked anymore," Harris added.

The city will use the new study to further consider adding a street maintenance fee. This fee would be collected from Killeen property owners. Harris, however, said he would rather see the city use "impact fees". Those would be collected from property developers and would not cost owners anything.

"I don't support the street fee, at the same I've very aware that we need the money," Harris said.

The Killeen City Council will review the results of the new study in July. City Spokeswoman Hilary Shine said there were other funding options as well but the city is not considering any other options at this time.

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