Stark County Engineer’s Office

Gas Tax Increase Passed

License Plate Fee $8,141,857

Permissive Fee $4,015,621

Gasoline Fee $2,939,200

Reimbursements $768,935

Misc. $358,398

Total $16,223,741

Capital Outlay $5,989,766

Supplies & Materials $2,102,229

Payroll $4,396,800

Employee Benefits $1,737,711

Contract Services $1,962,605

Total $16,189,111

Revenue Expenditures

Stark County Engineer’s Office 5165 Southway Street SW

Canton, OH 44706

Phone: 330-477-6781

Twitter @StarkCoEngineer

Office Financials for 2019

Noteworthy items completed in 2019 were:

The completion of a 300 ton Tension Fabric Mixing shed at Ridge Outpost. (Pictured below)

Melway Paving chip and sealed a potion of our main garage parking that included the main drive, front parking lot and west entrance at a cost of $23,237.

Ralph Byrd Construction upgraded our spill buckets to meet new State of Ohio UST require-ments. The cost of the project totaled $10,415.

Upgraded Airport Outpost lights for just under $3,000 using a grant from AEP.

WAB Global upgraded our main garage back yard pole lights for $1,400.

My staff repaired collapsed walls at the salt shed at Hartville Outpost.

Facility Upgrades

The cost to maintain roads keeps going up, but the reve-nue stream isn’t. That has been one of the main points used in the fight to raise the tax on fuel in Ohio. In April of this year, Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio Gen-eral Assembly came to an agreement to raise the tax on gas from 28 cents to 38.5 cents per gallon. They also will raise the tax on other fuels, including diesel, from 28 cents to 47 cents. The increase in gas tax revenue is esti-mated to be $865 million. Under the new law, 45 percent of that will go to local governments. The Stark County Engineer’s Office is estimated to re-ceive an additional $1.5 million. With the additional funds, our estimated total gas tax revenue will be $3.97 million, a 63 percent increase. The extra funding will provide our office the opportunity to improve more county roads in various ways. “We’re going to try to do a little more of everything,” Dave Tor-rence said. “We are going to do more bridges. We will try to do more paving. We can replace more guardrail and signals. This gives us the possibility to upgrade equip-ment sooner.”

Stark County

Engineer’s Office

Annual Report

If You Build It, They Will Come It’s one of the busiest intersections in Stark

County: and it’s only getting busier.

In 2018, the north leg of Whipple Avenue

and the portion of Everhard Road east of

the railroad tracks were the main focus. In

2019, every other item on the to-do list

needed completed. Wenger Excavating put

their men to work on completing the nearly

$7,900,000 project. Additional turn lanes,

extensions of a two way left turn lane on

two sections of the project, replacement of

two bridge structures, upgrading signals,

adding curb and gutter, sidewalks and new

signage was what loomed ahead.

The removal of an old metal culvert and the

replacement of a new 3 sided concrete box

culvert required a nearly 3 month closure of

Everhard Road. Maneuvering the giant sec-

tions of the 30 feet by 9 feet structure into

place was no easy tasks. Imagine playing

the game Operation in reverse. You pick up

the spare ribs with the tweezers, gently try-

ing to guide it into the slot without touching

the sidewalls. Now imagine the tweezers

being a massive crane. The spare ribs turn

into 26 sections of the culvert each weigh-

ing thousands of pounds, and the sidewalls

embedded with gas and water lines along

with fiber optic cables. That was the

“game” Wenger’s contracted Ruhlin Compa-

ny to perform.

With the project now completed, motorists

and pedestrians should find it easier and

safer to make it to their destination, which

was always the goal from the beginning.

Above: The Everhard/ Whipple intersec-tion looking south Left: A section of the 3 sided box culvert that was placed under Everhard Road.

Paving the Way Into the H1-H5 (2019) Resurfacing Contracts plus a completion of Asphalt paving contract let in 2018: Approxi-

mately 58.5 miles of County Highway were resurfaced using hot mix, cold mix/recycling, chip seal and

microsurfacing, at a combined bid price of over $ 4,365,000. Funding for this work was provided partial-

ly by the $10 permissive License Tag Fee enacted in 2007. Funding was also obtained from the Ohio

Public Works Commission (OPWC), the Village of East Sparta, the City of Canton and the City of Alliance.

The work was performed by Melway Paving Company, Superior Paving and Materials Inc, Central Allied

Enterprises Inc., Northstar Asphalt Inc. and Strawser Inc. and included the following County Highways:

• Hot Mix Asphalt Resurfacing (H1-2019) – 3.5 miles, $671,129.71

Routes included are Shepler Church Ave., Sherman Church Ave., Dueber Ave. and Harrison Ave.

• Chip and Seal Resurfacing (H2-2019) – Approximately 29 miles, $793,591.26

Includes sections of Alabama Ave., Lynnhaven Ave., Blough Ave., Ridge Ave., Trump Ave., Indian Run

Ave., Orchard View Ave., Robertsville Ave., Reeder Ave., McCallum Ave., Waynesburg Dr., Duquette Ave.

and Marlboro Ave.

• Cold Mix Resurfacing/Recycling (H3) – 3.4 miles, $418,225.02

Mt. Eaton St. in Sugarcreek Township and Willowdale Ave. in Sandy Township

• Hot Mix Resurfacing (H4) – Approximately 12 miles, $1,697,520

Routes include Orrville St., Beech St., Sherrick Drive., Middlebranch Ave., Perry Dr., Dueber Ave., Portage

St., and Easton St.

• Countywide Microsurfacing (H5 – 2019) – 8 miles, $431,815.38

This project is a microsurfacing of various County Highways in Stark County. Routes include Shepler

Church Ave., Southway St., Georgetown St., Orchardview St., Portage St. and Whipple Ave.

• H4-2018 Hot Mix asphalt (Continuation) – Approximately 2.5 miles, $353,000

This project is a resurfacing and repair of Harmont Ave. and Columbus Rd. with hot mix asphalt.

Other 2019 Projects

Along with the paving program, another large individual paving project took place on Whipple Avenue (pictured

below, middle). This project consisted of resurfacing and repairing 4 miles of roadway from SR 172 to Belden

Village Avenue. Along with paving, the project included 6 signal upgrades, as well as replacements of various

sections of curb and gutter, and sidewalk. The total cost for this project was $2,190,548 and was performed by

Central Allied Enterprises.

2019 also involved upgrades to various bridge structures throughout the county. With 329 bridges under our

wing, our bridge inspection report helps us determine areas of concern. This year’s bridge report showed us that

90% of our bridges have a rating of 5 or better on a 1-9 scale.

The Chart below shows bridge projects completed in 2019:

Bridge No. Roadway Type Contractor Cost Outside Funding

OS-23-18 Weimer Dr. New box beam bridge Black Horse Bridge $ 600,000 $ 600,000 (Fed, OPWC)

PL-19-13 Everhard Rd. Precast Conc. Culvert Wenger Excavating $ 1,125,500 $1,125,500 (Fed, OPWC)

OS-22-26 Lotz Ave. 4-sided Conc. Box SCE $ 144,600

SU-10-27 Kings Highway 4-sided Conc. Box SCE $ 154,700

OS-14-51 Cindell St. 4-sided Conc. Box SCE $ 67,400

Miscellaneous Projects

Various Guardrail repairs & installations SCE $ 42,800

Bridge Structural Repairs SCE $ 25,200

Logjams and Vegetation Removal SCE $ 5,300

Erosion Repairs, Stream work SCE $ 17,400

Total Work completed by Stark County Bridge Crews: $ 457,400

Above: Lotz Avenue Bridge Above: Perry Drive Culvert