Commissioners to combine road districts to save money, create more efficient departmentCommissioners to combine road districts to save money, create more efficient department
BY BECKY UEHLING
GRANT TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT
In an effort to share equipment, man-power, and save money, the Perkins County Commissioners have combined what used to be three road districts into two, now being called the One County One Road Department. Currently the county is testing the new system, with the complete launch to be sometime in early 2026.
According to Chairman Steve Tucker, changes needed to be made if the county was going to continue to provide the service that constituents demand.
“We needed to find better efficiencies in our operations,” Tucker said. He commented that he believes this plan will allow that.
“We’re going to make some mistakes, and it’s going to take some trial and error before we get it dialed in, so we ask for patience from the public,” Tucker said.
He commented the county has a lot of new road crew members and it’s taking time to get them trained.
The New Plan
The county is currently divided into three separate road districts, and into four satellite locations, with assets and personnel distributed across them. Each district reports to one of the three commissioners, and each has its own standards, procedures, and budget. This causes challenges to maintain standardized practices, according to Highway Superintendent Steve Leimer.
“This practice requires commissioners to dedicate a significant amount of time to leading their assigned road departments, rather than managing all their commitments,” Leimer said. “Most other counties don’t follow this road department practice.”
Leimer said there are other problems with the current setup.
“The three separate districts lack standardized practices and minimal collaboration or support with other districts. Aid is rarely sent between districts, with many bills for the same thing being sent to each location. These include utility, wireless, freight, delivery fees, and waste collection each being sent to all separate at each location,” Leimer said. He also commented that there is duplicate equipment, tools and on-hand parts and expenses that are not shared.
Other struggles now include workload of each of the foremen, employees who don’t learn from others’ mistakes, no weekly centralized planning meetings, which makes it hard to stay aligned with priorities, and lack of motivation, he said.
With the change from three districts into the two, the following changes are planned:
• The commissioners will guide, set policy, give feedback, and oversee the Highway Superintendent, who will manages the road department according to the commissioner’s direction, as well as the public.
• The commissioners will appoint an assistant highway superintendent, road building supervisor, and weed superintendent
• The east and west districts will each have six graders assigned to them.
• The highway superintendent will work out of the Elsie shop, and the assistant will work out of Brandon. They, along with the road building supervisor, will meet weekly to discuss work priorities.
• All personnel will check into the central repair locations, Brandon or Elsie. Grant and Madrid shops will remain open for equipment storage and to keep mileage down on graders.
• With increased workforce size, the highway superintendent and assistant will be able to utilize repairs better, assess their roads, work orders, and still upkeep road areas.
• Assets and graders will be divided based on the health of the fleet rating, and keeping it as fair as possible.
Leimer said with the new system, assets will be managed to benefit the entire county, including trucks, loaders, mowers, backhoes, pickups, etc, and not based on prior ownership. All gravel pits will be communal.
“Combining into two districts helps the county cut duplicate equipment,” he said.
The system will also have a dedicated road-building crew that will be selected from both districts. One road building supervisor will pull one to two graders from each during the summer months. The priority list will be voted on or decided by the commissioners, he said.
“An experienced road builder crew will deliver a more durable roadway across the county,” Leimer said. “This will keep assets within their areas for road upkeep until the building season ends. The weed superintendent will spray the tops of roadways to aid with the lower workforce keeping up with each side, and the road-building crew will go back to their side if the workload gets too high.”
Commissioner Mark Bottom believes the new system will help the commissioners provide more efficient services and costs.
“I feel district two has already seen benefits,” Bottom said. “As an example, we were behind in mowing, and were able to get caught up quicker with help (manpower and equipment) from other districts. Another example is getting gravel to needed spots. We have tested that and it was quite successful.”
Bottom said another benefit to saving money will be to reinvest the savings back into the road department’s employees.
“They (the employees) are what make things work,” Bottom said.
Bottom also praised Tucker for initially coming up with the idea for the new system, and Leimer for his vision in implementing it.
“Steve (Leimer’s) motivation to provide great service, leadership and skill sets are a big part of what is making this a real possibility,” he said.