The State Aid Act of 1949 provided aid by the state for construction of a system of roads under the jurisdiction of county boards of supervisors. The act defined state aid roads as main collector and distributor routes that feed into local trade areas or into the state highway network, carry a large volume of traffic, and serve most county and community functions. Any funds provided by the Legislature would supplement funds furnished by the counties for use on the State Aid System.
The current State Aid Engineer, administrator of the State Aid Road Division, acted contrary to legislative intent in the construction program and acted outside legislative authority in the Route Marker Program. The PEER Committee recommended that the State Aid Engineer reinstate and require compliance with the standards of roadway design in effect when he took office and that he terminate the Route Marker Program until properly authorized by the Legislature. The Committee recommended that the State Aid Engineer keep appropriate legislative committees informed of possible effects on State Aid’s revenues of changes in the sales tax law. In addition, the county boards of supervisors should be kept abreast of pending legislation and its effects. In the area of accounting controls, internal control over the administrative budget should be improved. Time overruns in construction should be subject to damages, and excavation quantities in the field should be verified. The Committee also recommended that an engineer who was in the Route Marker Program be moved into a district to help distribute the workload. The districts and the engineers assigned to them should be stabilized. Finally, the Committee recommended that the use of computers to store current information on pay items in construction projects be restored.
For a paper copy of this report, contact PEER by telephone at 601-359-1226 or by e-mail at reports@peer.ms.gov.