It’s Back to School for Clarkstown Roads: What Will The Report Cards Say?

Supervisor George Hoehmann and members of the Town Board stood at Dellwood Park last week and spoke on the town’s partnership with the Pavement Management Group (PMG), diving into the comprehensive paving plan PMG is actively implementing for the Town of Clarkstown.

PMG is a nationally recognized road infrastructure management company which uses innovative technologies to assess roadway conditions and uses objective methods to determine which roads are in most need of paving and how that fits into the long-term budget forecast for future paving seasons within the town.

The first phase of the paving management plan, involving video recording of every town road, has been completed. PMG utilized their on-the-ground video technology and captured HD footage of every single roadway under the jurisdiction of the Town of Clarkstown and uploaded this footage into the paving management software program.

Currently, PMG is near completion on the evaluation phase, which will include their automated distress detection system to provide a highly-detailed assessment of conditions for each roadway in order to determine how they will be cataloged into the standardized grading scale. The software score is then checked and verified by a team of engineers to ensure accuracy. This grading scale system will be publicly accessible in the coming weeks.

The grading scale categorizes roads into five tiers ranging from “Failed” to “Excellent.” Each score is based on the type of pavement distress, including the severity of the conditions, and the extent of roadway affected.

Scores for all town roads will be uploaded to a database accessible to the public. This will promote transparency and provide a clear explanation of where paving funds are being allocated.

This method was developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970s to establish an objective measure of the conditions of roads and parking lots. It was later adopted, standardized, and published by ASTM International. Today, the system is used by local and state governments, as well as airports, across the United States.

Supervisor Hoehmann and members of the Town Board were joined by residents of Doral Court and adjacent neighborhoods who have expressed concerns regarding the lengthy delays in the paving of their streets. At the April 14th Town Board meeting, Highway Superintendent Bob Milone was authorized with $3.844 million in paving funding from the Town Board consisting of serial bonds and the cost-shares program.

Under New York State Law, the Highway Superintendent retains sole, independent statutory authority in determining how highway maintenance and repair work is carried out. At this time, The Highway Superintendent claims he no longer has sufficient funds to complete paving for the aforementioned streets, yet has failed to show that he has exhausted this year’s funding allocation. Further, any statements claiming that the Town Board has prohibited the Highway Superintendent from paving any streets in the midst of planned or current utility work such as water main replacement by Veolia are incorrect and irresponsible.

The Town Board recognizes the importance of maintaining our roads and addressing necessary repairs and is distressed by the potential mismanagement of funding by the Highway Department. This new scoring system will provide objective data to the public in the interest of transparency. The Town Board is also actively examining and seeking to implement further fiscal controls and oversight measures, as allowed by law, to promote greater accountability in the expenditure of highway funds and to help prevent similar funding issues in the future. These controls will work in tandem with the budget forecast produced by PMG to ensure paving funds are allocated efficiently and appropriately.