 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name is Adam Payne County administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Roger Distruty and today we have one of our esteemed colleagues one of our 18 department heads Greg Schnell transportation director welcome Greg. Thank you thanks for having me today. It's good to have you here as you know every month we strive to focus on a different department their roles responsibilities and more often than not the department is here to speak to that and Greg got a lot going on with the warmer weather and tis the season for construction but before we get into that please share with our viewers a little bit about yourself when you started as transportation director. I started in October of 2006 so I'm approaching my ninth year I really love what's going on here we're getting a lot of stuff accomplished like we've talked about earlier there's room for improvement and we've always strived to do our best with what we have but we just in our business when we go through the cycles that we do with winter and construction those are only two seasons that we really care about and that's when we have to get our things done so we hate to be in inconvenience and people will be still have to get things done at the time we need to get done at. Well again it's good to have you here. Start big picture talk a little bit about the transportation department's organizational structure. The transportation department is a combined with the highway department as well as the airport we have 90 total employees including myself we have three full-time people at the airport with a part-time and an 87 at our operation on the highway division like I said it's myself we have two highway superintendents we have a couple of engineers some office staff and about 60 some guys in the field that take care of the roads and the plowing and working in the trucks as far as mechanics and welding so. And as you said it's now a combined department with the airport years ago the airport was a separate rather small department but with a lot going on what's the difference in budget with the highway division versus the airport division. The highway department relies on about four and a half million dollars worth of levier the airport is just shy of two hundred thousand one ninety three year ninety seven so it's they the airport gets majority their money from the levy as well as what we can take in from fuel sales through our FBO our highway operations the levy is is one part of it but we we do a lot of outside work for the state and there's capital plan money so we overall we have about a 13 to 14 million dollar budget. $13-14 million dollars for transportation. Correct. And then the is that with the airport included? That's about four hundred thousand. About four hundred thousand for the airport so a lot of responsibility ninety employees and again a tremendous amount going on. Set the stage as well with you know I think our viewers and from time to time you and I and Roger run into people what's the difference between a highway that's under federal ownership versus a state road versus a county road versus a town road you know how do you distinguish these? The state roads in our county are all numbered I-43 is a federal you funded highway because it has it's an interstate designation state highway twenty three fifty seven those are state highways so anything that has a number is owned by the state anything that has a letter is owned by the county anything has a name is a township or a village street. In some cases and throughout our county we have county trunks that are in townships that just for an instance down in the town of Wilson a lot of people call it Weedon Creek Road that's still our county trunk it's county trunk EE so there is some changes when it goes up when it comes to the letters and the names but it's the county's responsibility to take care of so the difference there is is like I-43 that's a 24-hour coverage highway for us during the winter months it falls off with State Highway 23 a little bit to an 18-hour road and ours are just covered as needed during the winter months it's a it's a little different story with a couple different shifts of people but that's the difference. And who do you determine who's responsible for taking care of what? The as far as the maintenance of those we have to work with the DOT they give us kind of a punch list if you will of things that they would like to have done on their roads so they contract with us to do that. Our highway department is also contracted with eleven of the fifteen townships in Sheboygan County to take care of their maintenance such as the grass cutting pothole patching snow removal you name it if it has to do with the road or the right way we're taking care of it for them. So County Highway Department taking care of the state trunk roadways the county roadways and in some cases the town or municipality roadways if they're contracting with us. That's correct. And big picture just how many miles of roadway are you responsible for? It breaks down that we have there's 450 miles of county trunk that we that were that our were the maintenance authority for 170 miles of state road and 465 miles of township road so all together it adds up there I think it's over like 2,200 miles of road that we're taking care of. Which is a lot of pavement to take care of and why people need to be a little patient after a snowstorm they're not necessarily going to get their road dealt with within the first few minutes or first few hours I imagine you have a priority system in place. Correct it's usually we take care of the state highway system first every all of our guys go out we send out 43 to 45 trucks on the first round and they will get they'll take care of the county trunks and state roads first and then we'll break off into the lower volume roads. So it is time means everything and snow removal and it becomes difficult as the as the event increases but we're here to take care of it. You do a heck of a good job. Excuse me Roger turn it over to you. Thank you Adam and having served on the county board for a number of years I've developed quite an appreciation for all the work that the highway department does for the county road state and the local municipalities appreciate your efforts and do appreciate that. Thank you. But tell us some of the benefits the county provides whether it's to the state town or villages by having the entire operation how does that help them and reduce the cost of services in general. I think one of the biggest benefits that it is is they're not duplication of services you know the state doesn't have to have their own particular highway department and buying additional equipment and having additional staff and purchasing different materials so having it all underneath one jurisdiction you have better control no duplication plus you get the usage on the equipment whereas if we were just using it strictly on our state highways we wouldn't recoup as much equipment revenue and rent off of it and it would just be sitting it's it would just benefit the department better to keep all the wheels turning at one point and sharing those services throughout. And why don't you explain a little bit about the asphalt operations where it's located how much material you use in a year and we produce some of our own and some of those things. Sure we we have an asphalt plant that's stationed out in the town of Green Bush right off the state highway 23. The county has purchased that many many many years ago it has proven to be a very valuable piece. Obviously if you have 450 miles of paved highway they need to be taken care of. Our operation we we produce anywhere between 40 to 90,000 tons a year depending upon if we have a big customer base that year where we have some projects outside of our operation that have to go and it depends upon the cost of the oil annually we we bid out our oil just to see where we're going to be at and obviously that drives how much work we can do. We have gained some efficiencies over the years with adding a bag house to take out some of the dust it's better for the environment as well as adding a recycled asphalt miller which breaks down old asphalt that was on the road brought back to the plant run back through so we're re-utilizing the oil that's in there as well as the aggregate so we've reduced the cost of our asphalt the raw product at the end by about four dollars a ton just to keep us in more an efficient state and we can get more work done that way. And besides the levy on our tax bills what are some of the other sources that help fund improving some of the road projects and what sources are available. Over the last I believe since 2008 the county board has allowed the highway department to utilize the five-year capital plan for some of our larger projects and giving us that extra boost in investing in our our payments we've been doing a lot more pulverizing which is is turning the asphalt over and regrading and put on a fresh mat to protect the base and the surface when they get to the point that they've treated so far. So that's one of our one of our areas that that helps offset our budget as well as we have the ability to apply for chip funds it's a it's a county highway improvement fund through the state as well as the STP program which is a federal federal and state funded program those don't happen every year it's every other year is when we have the ability to apply for those funds. And what is the typical life of a blacktop surface on a local or a county road? Studies indicate we should be getting 15 miles or 15 years out of a pavement however you know that a lot of that has to do with the type of industry that could be along that road generating more traffic ADTs that type of stuff whether it's farm traffic large manufacturing those are the things that drive so if you get a road that only carries 50 60 cars a day and it's it's typically just cars it could give you 30 years of life we have we have some of our roads we haven't touched for a long time while they're in just some little bit of maintenance in order to to keep up with the with some of the rutting and deterioration that's out there. And I'm sure there's a lot of engineering and planning for reconstruct and how is that similar or what are the differences between that and a regular overlay or maintenance done on routinely on roads? A lot of what drives our reconstruction is volume of traffic there's again going back to the amount of roads that we have in our county not every one of them needs to be constructed to a typical section where you have 80 feet of right away in a 30-foot top because obviously as I mentioned with 50 cars on you wouldn't need to have that type of cross section on it. So we look at the at our at our system to the connecting highways whether it's connecting to a state highway or across the county where it makes sense and if there's a large volume of traffic we want to improve that to make sure we have decent drainage a wide pavement and decent shoulders. Now if we're going to look at a maintenance job we every other year we we raid our roads to the system that the state has provided us and gives us a kind of a life cycle of when we should be doing what next whether it's a seal code or crack filling and that's determined by the age of the pavement after the first couple of years of putting down a new pavement we want to be looking at the cracks to prevent the water from getting into the base. 10, 5 to 15 years out you might be looking at a seal quote and then looking at overlays so we're always looking to see what that next investment and in the next area we're going to be headed to. And I'm sure that helps you determine which roads need to be resurfaced or rebuilt and the rating system helps you do that but it's always looking at the roads itself and what parts of them get more traffic I'm sure that at some intersections they get a lot more traffic that's length of road than the the entire length of the road that makes a difference too I'm sure. You bet you know and in our environment with the winter and you get the free saw cycles some years we may not have had that road on a on our on our pavement cycle but due to frost heaves and that type of stuff you know eventually it has a wear and tear on the on the road as well we may have to put the road that was in line and reprioritize because of a spring break up in order to fix up a road that wasn't there the year before or didn't have that issue the year before. And what are the primary road construction projects you have going on this year? We're finishing up the county trunk LS project which is a mammoth project for us it was redoing eight miles of of Dairyland Drive and doing the same on county trunk LS which is now Lakeshore Drive and relocating the road from from the east of these residence homes to the west side of these residence homes. We're probably within about a month of completing the project and that one will be great to get off the books I'll be happy to see that one done. From there we're going to go down to the intersection of county trunk A and EE and put a roundabout in as well as improve the road section from State Highway 28 to that intersection. We have we're looking at a paving project out here on county trunk A between 28 and county trunk PP which would be a pulverizing paved job so it's going to be a little bit bigger than a normal overlay so those are just to name a few. Well thank you again for all the work that you and your crew is doing it's much appreciated. Thank you very much. Greg earlier Roger asked you some questions about the you know the roads and how they how you plan accordingly to maintain them over time and you give a nice high-end overview of that and I've also heard you give a nice high end overview to folks like our county board and heads of local government about you know if you have to do that overlay in 15 years and if you don't then what happens in the cost please run through that hypothetical from to give our viewers a sense of the cost associated with taking just care one mile of road. The the cost to overlay a mile of road runs about $120,000 a mile if we're not going to take care of that or keep up with that type of a system and we'll allow that pavement to break down and deteriorate to the next level then we'd come in with the pulverizer and have to pulverize that pavement and get down into the gravel bring it all back up relay it and all of a sudden we've just went from 120 to 250. If we're going to continue to kick the can down the road and not do what we should be doing our next investment is going to be a million plus in order to rebuild the road if we're not taking care of the drainage and the the cracks so it goes 120 250 all the way to a million I mean there's a couple of levels in between there obviously but if we're going to let it go the cost get extreme. So as a community and as taxpayers and as legislators or a governor or Congress all those levels of government if you're going to be fiscally responsible it's pretty clear that it makes sense to maintain your roads as you go rather than as you said delay that and inevitably play pay twice as much or ten times as much you're absolutely correct and you know unfortunately over the years been tight budgets highway operations were typically the ones that is to see the cut up front and a lot of that is because you know you have some flexibility to allow some of that maintenance and paving slide a little bit because you don't see the immediate effects but if we continue to let that happen now you're paying a lot more a lot more into the future. Some of our viewers may have followed of late in the in the press or in the media that there's been some discussion as part of the state budget development that prevailing wage law is being looked at and I imagine most people don't have a real good feel for well how does prevailing wage law impact the cost of doing road construction please try to in a thimble explain that to folks so they can understand well what's being debated what's the issue right now. Prevailing wage is a wage that's paid to employees on a government funded municipal funded project that had that meets a threshold a dollar threshold a dollar threshold is 234,000 whether that's a building project or a road project along those lines and that that wage is established by the DOT or by the Department of Commerce I believe it is and it's it's a data driven estimate of all the wages that they pulled together for construction companies and that's how they develop that that prevailing wage. Prevailing wages are something that was set up a long long time ago I don't know the entire history of that but it can drive a project anywhere between 10 and 15 to 25 percent higher in comparison to paying just a regular wage so it's it's currently the way the way the prevailing wage laws is structured that if my department was to work for a town in Sheboygan County and the project is going to be over a hundred thousand dollars my employees would need to get paid prevailing wage which then would be tacked on to the townships bill if the private sector was going to be doing that same job and it doesn't meet the 234,000 dollar threshold they would not have to pay the prevailing wage so there's a disparity between the private sector and the county operation so I believe that some of the structure or some of the reasons for some of the changes they're talking about raising the thresholds to into the millions of dollars. I mean what's ironic it's it's kind of a double hit not only are they treating the private sector and public sector differently with a different threshold you said a hundred thousand dollars versus 234,000 dollars so not only does the public's threshold kick in sooner therefore as taxpayers were paying more but also you know the prevailing wage just bottom line is a higher cost than what counties are generally local units of government pay their staff to do road brought road improvement projects so really it's two areas of concern and what I find remark remarkable and I know Chairman Distruty and the County Board has voiced strong concern with our area legislators as you know Greg and they're very supportive of some type of reform when we're talking about the tremendous cost associated with transportation and maintaining our network transportation network yet here we're asking taxpayers to pay 10 15 20 percent more and why that could be resources going into taking care of more of our roadways and not pushing or kicking that can down the road to more expensive costs long-term it's you know it's been something I've I've been getting a lot of questions on lately and I'm no means I don't mean to understand it all yet but when I start to think about how prevailing wage is developed and and it's a dollar threshold driven on the cost of a project when I look at the cost of an overlay $82,000 is materials so the wages is only like 20,000 but because of the dollar threshold so you would think that it would be something maybe something could be different just based on the wages if that's over a hundred thousand all of a sudden it would kick in so I think there's different ways to play with that a little bit but again the prevailing wage has been around a long time and you know maybe it has something to do with most of these positions they they aren't year-round work and you know they need to have that extra I mean everything ebbs it flows but right now bottom line it really provides an advantage to the private sector and if the private sector was providing a lower cost to take care of our roads well that would be a good thing but in fact it's the opposite it's costing taxpayers more to utilize private operators to do this maintenance and we need to level that playing field I think so I think that was a nice explanation thank you Greg and thank you for the information you've been sharing with our legislators and at least encouraging that some type of reform be considered moving along let's return back to the airport a little bit focus most of our time on highway department operations you know we have the highway division the airport division what's happening out at the airport what's new there right now we're just preparing this year is a down year for any type of construction projects out at the airport we have a few little things that are going on working at putting some fiber in that type of thing to help our tenants out there have better access we just completed last year the the apron area out in front of the aviation heritage center so this year we're in design for a few projects that are coming up at some pavement projects on the in the GA taxiway but a lot of that is self-induced that we are not doing a construction because of the PGA that's coming up in August so we didn't want to be having all things ripped up and because that generates a lot of activity for our airport when they start coming in for the PGA so we're working on just tidying things up cleaning up there's a lot of maintenance that that hasn't been done for a while so we're taking care of that just a lot of activity happening out there and there is a lot of activity happening if you've never been to your Sheboygan County Memorial Airport I encourage you to get out there we always have what wings and wheels on Father's Day which has been a long-standing activity that I think a lot of people enjoy and take part in but I still hear from time to time people who don't recognize that Sheboygan County owns an airport and it's a pretty significant airport in fact Greg just how large is our airport and how busy is it in comparison to other public airports across the state we've over a thousand acres all together 700 and I think 30 it may be inside defense so I mean it's a lot of grass to cut and there's several miles of runway and taxiway that have to be plowed and maintained so it's it's as far as landings and take-offs I don't have that committed to memory but it's pretty steady if memory serves because I just read your annual report that Charles Sweets your airport manager put together I think it's like the seventh busiest public airport in the in the state so as you said a lot going on and I know Chairman Distruty and I just the other day were talking about how the County Board over time has supported extending the runways and the runways now or to such a length that we can handle pretty much the biggest aircrafts out there can we not but 93,000 pounds is what we can you can go a little bit larger than that but you know if we had to land something a little bit larger we could but you wouldn't want that because it's hard on the pavements but yeah we we can take in a lot of stuff the small charter planes or that type of a business development that's something that we can handle and if no one's ever been to the Sheboyton County airport before and you take TT to the north off of highway 23 and if they don't get that chance or again have never been there in a snapshot just what kind of activity is out there what kind of tenants do we have what kind of hustle and bustle is happening there we have five commercial tenants that's like an industrial the the colders the bemuses the Richard sins and we have eight and dust industry which is all along the same lines we have geospatial aerometric they they do a lot of flying and then there's also 39 general aviation just for guys that have their own little plane at that flyer on so going back to some of the events we have this year but you know we have a the t28s come back annually and that's usually right before the EAA flying well this year there's about a hundred more planes are called the air coupes will be there as well so that is the week to be out to the week before EAA you're going to see probably close to 300 planes buzzing around our airport and and doing some of their training and of course wings and wheels I presume is scheduled for Father's Day again that's correct yeah and then now we've got the PGA I'm testing my memory it's mid-August 15 I believe so yes 15 through the 20th or right around an Ed ballpark and I I often hear people go out there to do a little celebrity watching the airport during that week there's a lot of iron that's brought in a lot iron well my compliments to you and your team on the oversight of the highway division the airport division the transportation department as a whole Greg as Roger and our board knows is one of those department heads that has stepped up and taken on additional responsibility we consolidated these two departments a few years ago and Greg Schnell is shoulder that and does an excellent job and at the onset I think you said what has it been now nine years it will be nine years not over I guess the honeymoon period is over well we have really enjoyed working with you and I personally consider not only Greg an outstanding co-worker but a friend and thank you for your leadership Greg thank you and thank you for joining us next month we're going to have a new face sitting across the coffee table from Roger and I it's going to be Melody Lorgie she is our new circuit clerk of courts she's been in the department I think for nearly 25 years although you wouldn't know it looking at her she's a young lady who just took on a very important role as leader of the clerk of courts office took over from Nan Todd who had been that elected department head for a number of years so looking forward to introducing you to Melody if you've never heard from her and learning more about the important work that our clerk of court staff do so until then thank you for joining us and if you have any questions or suggestions for improvement don't hesitate to contact any of us or your county board supervisor again thanks for joining us and have a good summer