Nearly a year after it was formed, the Grand County Transportation Special Service District has a tentative budget. According to the budget document, the district will receive revenues of $210,000 and incur expenditures of the same amount for 2010.

The district’s revenue sources are clearly identified in the budget, but expenditures are vaguely defined. Under expenditures for 2010 the budget lists $206,000 for “capital outlay – roads/bridges,” and $4,000 for “paved trails.”

Details of how the $206,000 will be spent have yet to be worked out, but “pavement preservation jobs have moved to the top of the list,” board member Pat McGann said.

The district will pay for chip-seal work on existing roads – Heaven Avenue, Easy Street, and Lower Hastings – and engineering to bring Overlook Road up to required standards, said Audrey Graham who represents the Grand County Council on the district board. Matching funds for bridge replacement and repair also have high priority, she said.

Ranking of other priority road projects will be worked out in April, according to Lisa Ceniceros who performs part-time secretarial tasks for the district.

A budget item of $4,000 for “paved trails” is a set-aside for future maintenance needs that is to be matched by an equal amount from the Grand County Recreation Special Service District and Grand County, according to county council member Chris Baird. Baird helped establish those commitments as the council’s representative of Trail Mix, a committee that advises the council on non-motorized trails.

About $20,000 needed to repair the paved trail that goes north past the entrance to Arches National Park is not shown in the tentative budget. But “the money has been encumbered,” transportation district treasurer Geoff Freethey said Tuesday. He said the money is carried over from 2009, and cannot be spent for any other purpose.

Once engineering specifications are worked out by Grand County Engineer Mark Wright, the district will solicit bids from contractors for the job, Freethey said.

The district was established by the Grand County Council last February as a way to utilize mineral lease funds to construct and maintain county roads. The influx of new money for roads was intended to free up the Grand County Road Department’s traditional source of funds – gasoline taxes collected by the state – to purchase new equipment to replace old, worn out equipment.

At that time, council member Gene Ciarus argued that trails, even paved ones, should be considered as recreation uses, not transportation. His was the only vote against the motion to create the district after Baird and other council members agreed that paved trails are important to commuters and other travelers, as well as for recreation.

Baird promised that trails will take up only a small part of the budget, and the allocation of only $4,000 out of the district’s tentative budget of $210,000 for 2010 bears that out. A worksheet Baird developed shows 3.8 miles of paved trails to be maintained in 2010 and a need for $11,400 required to perform that maintenance.

The annual amount needed for trail maintenance rises to $37,500 by 2013, as another nine miles of paved trails are added along the Colorado River, up Moab Canyon on the old Moab highway, and from Lions Park to Moab, according to Baird’s calculations.

If the three-way split among the transportation district, the recreation district, and the county is continued, that means each entity will have to come up with $12,500 per year for trail maintenance by 2013.

Baird explained that the projected annual maintenance needs are an average. Some years the need will be greater, some years it will be less, he said. An annual set-aside will ensure that when the money is needed, it will be there, Baird said.

“Paved trails are a real addition to the community,” said John Hartley, chairman of the transportation district board. “Everybody on our board believes the same way.”