County road commissioners Tuesday reviewed a report that detailed how much money was spent on projects in 2009.

“We did a lot of work last year and we spent our fund balance down to $321,000, which is the lowest we’ve gone in a long time,” said clerk Joe Nedow, who compiled the report. Typically, the Road Commission keeps at least $500,000 in its fund balance to take care of any problems toward the end of the fiscal year, which runs the same as the calendar year.

For 2009, the report showed the Road Commission spent $1,978,280 on primary road heavy maintenance. Primary county roads are numbered roads that don’t begin with “19”, and heavy maintenance refers to projects that involve rebuilding and resurfacing. Of the nearly $2 million, $845,162 was spent on improving County Road 633 from M-22 to Pobuda Road with most of that cost covered by a grant from the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

Another major federal government-funded project was paving North Bar Lake Road over a 1.18-mile gravel section. The Road Commission also funded a $413,017 resurfacing of County Road 651 from M-22 south to Bodus Road. The 651 project will be completed this spring with the portion that involves federal government “stimulus” funds.

The commission, with participating help from townships, spent $1,836,809 on local road heavy maintenance projects last year. Of that amount, $770,464 was spent on four projects in Leelanau Township, with the township contributing $410,601. Nedow said the work included resurfacing portions of Peterson Park, Kilcherman, Foxview, Melkild, Johnson and Carlson roads. Suttons Bay Township had $361,715 of work completed through the resurfacing of a little more than a mile of Putnam Road and 1.5 miles of Herman Road. The Putnam Road work was funded entirely by a $300,000 grant from the BIA.

Cleveland Township had two sections of gravel road paved at a total cost of $349,878, of which the township contributed $236,562. The work resulted in the paving of one mile of School Lake Road and 1.8 miles of Shimek Road.

The commission spent $873,142 on regular maintenance of county primary roads that included mowing, tree removal and snow plowing. The costs are entirely covered by the Road Commission either through funds from federal and state gas and weight tax revenues or by the half-mill property tax levy approved by voters in 2008. Of the $873,142, $303,569 went toward snow removal.

The commission spent $1,587,683 for local road regular maintenance, of which $505,786 was used for snow removal. The commission spent another $193,871 in surface maintenance, which primarily involves filling potholes and patch work.

“We also did a lot of surface maintenance in cul-de-sac areas, like on Murray Court. That didn’t qualify for heavy maintenance because you have to put down more than 1½ inches of new asphalt in order for it to be classified as heavy maintenance,” Nedow said. The commission also spent $40,175 on sweeping, $22,765 on mowing road sides, and $139,444 on tree removal.

For state trunk-line maintenance the commission spent $644,083, all of which is covered by a contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation. Snow removal was the biggest part of that expense at $322,700.

Commission vice-chairman John Popa chaired the meeting because chairman Lee A. Bowen is on vacation in Hawaii. Popa said he liked the report, but felt the commission is spending too much on mowing county roads. “We spent over $40,000 ($40,611) on mowing the shoulders on county roads. I know we can’t do anything about what the state requires along the trunkline, but I think we’re spending too much for mowing our roads,” he said.

Manager/superintendent Herb Cradduck said next to snow plowing complaints, the most calls the commission receives is about grass and weeds growing along the road. “People get really upset if we let it go too long,” he said.