HUBBARD TOWNSHIP — Officials hope to make more infrastructure improvements possible, starting with one of their funding sources in an upcoming election.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Trustee Eric Lamb said the township’s road department has a 3.45-mill renewal levy coming up, noting the department has a $455,593 budget, with three employees and their salaries, equipment and insurance.

“Their salaries are $195,000, their Ohio Public Employees Retirement System is $43,000, their insurance is $48,000 — that’s the biggest expense,” Fiscal Officer Jennifer Evans said.

Lamb said the remaining funds go toward fueling vehicles and filling potholes around the township, adding that the remaining funds go toward redoing roads — and the township has some long ones, according to Trustee Jason Tedrow.

“Lincoln (Avenue) is one of the probably longer ones that we actually have we’re responsible for, because you’ve got Chestnut Ridge, Bell Wick, Wick Campbell, all that — Schotten (Road) — those are all county roads,” Tedrow said. “Those are all county roads that we’re not responsible for, but we do have some significantly sized ones — Mount Everett; (Hubbard) Thomas Road’s pretty long if you go the full stretch.”

Tedrow said the township had to kick in $132,000 for the Lincoln Avenue project, even with Ohio Public Works Commission funds in play, which eats their entire road budget and their ability to handle other roads.

Lamb said officials are looking into not only taking advantage of grants, similar to how Lincoln was handled, but also bundling roads together.

“In Eastgate, they have a 0% interest loan for the township, where if we bundle three, four, five, (or) six roads together, we can apply for the grant and get a 0% interest loan on that and pay that for 10 years,” Lamb said. “Which would let us be able to group portions or sections of the township together.”

Tedrow said moving equipment factors into the cost of paving, noting that merging projects could hopefully reduce that.

“If we get one done a year early, hopefully the goal is — maybe we hedge inflation a little bit because the cost is going to do nothing but go up,” Tedrow said. “Hopefully, we can keep those costs down before we see that increase.”

Trustee Monica Baker questioned whether the plan was budget-dependent, pointing out that the township would still have to pay the principal if the township did five roads every year.

Evans said the township would not be able to do that much over a year, as they still need to budget their funds.

Baker said she understood where Tedrow and Lamb were coming from about trying to hedge inflation, acknowledging that their budget was being sucked up by it.

“Just because you have a term that’s that long doesn’t mean we need to take that long to pay it back — that’s just the max payment we have,” Tedrow said.

Lamb noted former Trustee Bill Colletta took care of Lincoln’s OPWC grant, for which the township’s $132,000 was a 25% match.

“Imagine if we were able to take that $132,000 out and pay that over 10 years; (it would) open up our operating budget,” Lamb said.

Tedrow noted several roads that barely have any asphalt left, questioning how they would keep up maintaining them because it takes away the ability to spend on other things.

Evans said the renewal levy will be on November’s ballot, adding that it was “definitely necessary” to keep their roads.

“If it doesn’t pass, we’ll have no money to pave with,” Tedrow said.