The Van Buren County Board of Road Commissioners has approved the 2025 budget for the Van Buren County Road Commission.

Commission Managing Director Bret Witkowski tells us it’s a big chunk of change to maintain and repair the county’s 1,313 miles of roads.

“Dollarwise, you’re looking at close to $30 million, and it includes 60 employees, all the equipment, all the road work,” Witkowski said.

Witkowski says about $12 million of that comes from the Michigan Transportation Fund, $6 million from township road millages, and $3 million from the county road millage. For 2025, the road department is also expecting grants totaling around $8 million. However, Witkowski says all of this still isn’t really enough.

“The biggest challenge is just the Michigan Transportation Fund, or Act 51, inability to keep up with inflation. So, we’re losing an annual about $4 million a year, which comes right off the roads.”

Witkowski says if it wasn’t for all the townships with road millages of their own, the Van Buren County Road Commission wouldn’t be able to get anything done. And he’s not optimistic the state will fix its road funding shortfall. He tells us it looks to him like neither political party really has a plan that would solve the problem. That’s part of the reason why the road commission was aggressive about pursuing grants this year. However, Witkowski tells us it’s really “pushing the envelope to match grants.”

Looking ahead, Witkowski says major projects lined up for 2025 include a rebuild of Red Arrow Highway from Hartford to the county fairgrounds, a rebuild of County Road 384 north of South Haven, and prep work to replace a bridge over the Paw Paw River north of Paw Paw.