The Town of Caswell Beach in southeast Brunswick County is asking lawmakers to lift a restriction on the use of local road funds so it can address some costly but needed drainage fixes along its main thoroughfare.
The problem: that thoroughfare, Caswell Beach Road, is a state highway. And an account of money the town wants to apply to it can only be spent on municipal streets.
“We’ve only got two municipal streets in town … and we’ve got three drainage problems [on state-owned Caswell Beach Road] that we need to address, and it’s going to cost a lot of money to have it fixed,” Caswell Beach Town Administrator Chad Hicks explained Monday.
Those specific drainage fixes are not on any shortlist at the N.C. Department of Transportation, and so the town for timely improvement is hoping to get it done with the help of money the state gives towns for upkeep of municipal streets.
Known colloquially as “Powell Bill” money, it’s generated by the state’s gas tax and allocated to municipalities across North Carolina. But towns generally don’t have the authority to spend it on state roads.
That may change for Caswell Beach.
By request, Brunswick County’s Sen. Bill Rabon (R) has filed Senate Bill 324, which would give Caswell Beach, specifically, the power to maintain the highway with Powell Bill funds.
Hicks said Caswell Beach Road has drainage problems in the vicinities of Oak Island Lighthouse and the town’s public parking lot, for which estimates put the fixes at around $300,000.
The town’s Powell Bill account currently holds less than $90,000.
“We probably won’t do it all in one fiscal year,” Hicks said of the improvements.
As filed, the bill would give the town until summer 2018 to use the Powell Bill money as such.
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