Motorists
have reason to celebrate --- at least in the short term. As part of County
Executive Jack Doyle's proposed 2003 budget cuts, the county will no longer pay
towns to resurface, sweep, and otherwise maintain county roads. If approved by
the Legislature this fall, the move would save the county almost $1.5 million
next year.

That means travelers of county
roads, which are typically the main thoroughfares in the area, won't have to
contend with annoying detours, the stench of hot tar, and the sight of sweaty,
sunburned workers scantily clad in orange safety vests next summer.

Town supervisors, however, are less
than excited about that prospect. And if the 2003 budget cut becomes codified
into a long-term county cost-saving measure, drivers could find themselves
yearning for a whiff of molten asphalt.

Town crews work on town roads, but
have traditionally been reimbursed by the county for work they do on county
roads that pass through the towns. In Perinton, the cut potentially represents
a roughly $45,000 shift in expenses from the county to the town, according to
town supervisor James Smith. In the past, the county painted town roads and
provided signs at no cost to the towns. But now, "the county will begin
charging us for doing road striping and making signs," Smith says, "and we will
no longer be getting a reimbursement for roadside mowing on county roads." Town
crews perform other cosmetic tasks on county roads, such as sweeping gravel and
other debris from the road surface and picking up road kill. Under Doyle's
proposal, towns would no longer be reimbursed for that work, either.

But it's the discontinuation of
reimbursement for resurfacing work that could be most problematic for the
towns, particularly if the cut proposed for 2003 becomes policy in future
tight-budget years. "If [the county] doesn't have additional revenue sources, I
don't know how they'll get revenue to reinstate that," Smith says.

"If you keep eroding that program,
at some point the condition of the roads really starts to show and be unsafe,"
says Penfield town supervisor Channing Philbrick. County roads in Penfield
include "the major north-south, east-west roads," Philbrick says, such as Five
Mile Line Road and Salt Road, among others.

Over time, "normal maintenance
becomes major maintenance," says Philbrick. And "the longer you wait, the more
it's going to cost you to maintain the roads." So if the county doesn't resume
reimbursing towns for such work in 2004 or 2005, major maintenance will become
a major expense --- an expense for which towns could be responsible.

It may be
possible
for towns to avoid major maintenance costs two or three years from now by doing
preventative maintenance on county roads next year --- on their own dime. But
as Smith says, "We have our own obligation on our own roads we have to
maintain." Smith doubts whether any town could afford the added expense of
footing the bill for county road maintenance. And that's assuming towns could
legally alter county roads, which are the county's responsibility.

"I don't think we even have the
legal ability to do that," Smith says. "Those roads are owned by the county. We
don't have the right to do that, except under contract."

Philbrick, however, doesn't think
the county would stand in the way. "As a practical matter, any time the state
or a town wants to do some of [the county's] work as an expense, I don't think
that would be an issue."

Calls seeking the Doyle
administration's opinion were not returned.

County roads in Irondequoit are in
decent shape, says town supervisor David Schantz, because most of the county
roads in that town have recently been resurfaced and reconstructed. But in
regard to keeping those new roads swept and the right of ways alongside them
mowed and orderly, "we're obviously very concerned," he says.

Irondequoit is in midst of a major
revitalization effort aimed at attracting people and businesses to the area.
"In that regard, we obviously have to continue those [cleaning] efforts or lose
ground trying to market our town," Schantz says.

Schantz estimates that work will
cost about $30,000 a year. "In a $23 million budget, it's not significant," he
says. "But in this economic environment, we count every penny."

Penfield stands to lose 10 times
that much money next year, and a few road crew jobs, to boot. "We plan on doing
$280,000 to $300,000 of county road work," Philbrick says. "If the cutback
becomes $100,000, it would have a major impact on revenue." To make up the
difference, and to safeguard town jobs, Philbrick says the town crew would seek
work for other government organizations, school districts, and colleges.

Doyle's proposal "puts the squeeze
on us," says Philbrick, who, like Doyle, is a Republican. "I understand the
county's position and applaud him for keeping the tax rate flat, but it does
put quite an impact on us at the local level."

And the county is passing the buck
in another way, too. "The public doesn't know if it's a county road or a town
road," Philbrick says. So if the county cut causes a smooth, scenic road to
turn into an ugly, bumpy nightmare: "The town get the complaints."