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REVIEW OF 1995 STREET MAINTENANCE PROGRAM By: Steven Jankowski, City Engineer Background: The 1995 Street Maintenance Program has been completed. This year's program consisted of eight projects covering a total of 7.14 miles of street which received sealcoats proceeded by crackfilling, and two bituminous overlay projects which covered a total of 4.33 miles. As you know, financing of these maintenance activities consists of 50 percent City financing from the dedicated PIR fund and 50 percent assessment to the benefitted property owners. The assessment hearing for this year's program is scheduled for the September 26, 1995 Council meeting. The purpose of this case is to report on the final costs as compared to those projected in the January 1995 Feasibility Study, and to review the final assessment role in view of Council guidelines provided at an April 1995 Council Workshop. Attached is a table summarizing the final project costs compared to the estimated costs in the feasibility study. The final project costs for the two overlay projects were between eight and eleven percent below the feasibility study estimate. However, the eight sealcoat projects ranged anywhere between $6.17 to $26.94 per unit higher than those estimated in the feasibility study. The overage was discussed at the time of contract awards in June. At that time, I reported that the bid prices for sealcoating were 22.4 percent higher than estimated in the feasibility study and were due to a number of factors which included (1) higher bituminous prices, (2) less City-owned aggregate from previous year's programs; and (3) a less competitive bidding atmosphere. While the individual unit cost increases are relatively small, and the overall project costs range from 110% to 119% of the feasibility study estimate, the percentage increase over the feasibility study for five of the projects are considerably higher due to the fact that developer escrows were applied against the total project cost. This had the effect of making the assessable cost a small fraction of the total project cost. It is my recommendation that unit cost assessments for the sealcoat projects be determined as outlined in the feasibility study, using the actual final project costs, despite the result that these unit prices will be higher than those projected in the feasibility study. Alternatively, if the City wished to cap the assessments at the level outlined in the feasibility study, the additional cost to the City would be $4,552. This would increase the City's share to the 1995 Street Maintenance Program from $104,354 to $108,906. A second issue which should be considered by the Road and Bridge Committee involves f'malizing the project assessment roles. Earlier this year at a workshop in April, Council provided direction on assessment policy for the street maintenance program. A copy of the minutes from this meeting is attached. As a result of this direction, one property has been dropped from the preliminary assessment role from Project #94-04 (133rd Avenue N.W.). Eight other properties have circumstances which are not precisely defined by the Council directive. The parcels should be reviewed and a determination made as to whether they should be retained or dropped from this assessment role. The parcels and circumstances are as follows: