The Indianola City Council held a study session after their most recent meeting, discussing the Streets Master Plan project, an extensive study on the condition of roads, and a data driven way to decide the priority of repairs. City Manager Ryan Waller said one of the conclusions of the project was the budget allocation for road maintenance will have to rise if the city wants to perform proper maintenance.

“Right now our annual budget for road maintenance is about $350k. Our street budget is funded through the road use tax, which is based on population. Right now with that money, our roads will continue to deteriorate, there is no way we can keep up. So as a data point, in order to get the roads to a good ranking where we want them, we are looking at $1.5 million of annual maintenance.”

Waller also said an accurate count on the census is extremely important for projects such as these, as the road budget is not funded by property taxes.