BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Brown County has a $738 million list of projects it hopes to get done in the next six years, and on Tuesday evening, the first of a handful of committees signed off on a plan that calls for 16% of the work to get done next year.
If you’ve been to Austin Straubel International Airport recently, you’ve seen its exterior is getting freshened up. You might consider it an appetizer of what could be coming with about $32 million worth of projects penciled in for next year.
“Really, most of it is just rehabilitating and reconstructing surfaces that have aged beyond their useful life,” said Marty Piette, the airport’s director. “Chances are, we don’t get funding for everything on our wish list, and it just gets slid down into a further year, but we want to be optimistic and budget optimistically that we will get a lot of the grant funding that we request.”
If the work doesn’t get done next year, it will slide further into Brown County’s capital improvement plan. The plan, which the airport is just one piece of, forecasts the next six years of infrastructure work.
While next year’s work is mostly set from when the county instituted a half percent sales tax four years ago, projects from 2024 through 2028 need to be mapped out in greater detail after the county board extended the sales tax last week. It was originally supposed to end at the end of 2023.
“Starting this fall and into next year, we’ll begin these conversations, and talking about after we get our facilities study done, to look at what the most needs are and then work with you, the committee, to start developing the next five-year CIP (capital improvement plan),” Brown County Director of Administration Chad Weininger told the county’s planning, development and transportation committee.
Most of the county’s work in 2023 will be paid for through sales tax revenue and the county’s allotment from the American Rescue Plan Act, according to Weininger. It includes about $10 million of road work.
“No different than anything at your house, you see that room is the worst room in the house, you go and fix that one first,” said Paul Fontecchio, Brown County’s highway director. “Kind of the same thing with the roads and bridges.”
One of the top priorities next year is starting the work to make the Packerland Drive and Mason Street intersection on Green Bay’s west side safer. Work will also begin on reconstructing part of Lineville Road from two lanes to four.
Some other big projects for the county next year include making a single-point entrance at the courthouse and design work for the southern bridge.
The full county board will eventually vote on the six-year outlook and then later vote on next year’s work as part of the county’s 2023 budget.
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