Audrain County voters will be asked in April to approve a quarter-cent sales tax to raise funds for construction and repair of small bridges, culverts and other structures on county roads.

If passed, the sales tax would be in place for 10 years.

Engineers have identified more than 700 structures under 20 feet in length in Audrain County. There is no federal financial assistance for small bridges on county right of ways and Presiding County Commissioner Steve Hobbs says many of these are in need of replacement or repair.

A program from 1985 to 2010 based on a half-cent sales tax led to construction on more than 200 bridges over 20 feet in the county. This effort benefited from federal funds. A quarter-percent tax approved in 2016 is still helping with work on small structures.

The county recently approved a contract worth $27,500 with Cochran Engineering for construction on a bridge on Audrain County Road 525 that Hobbs indicates has been a top priority for the Laddonia area.

“Small structures are just as important as large ones,” he said.

The structures must bear the load of farm equipment, trucks, school buses, emergency vehicles and more.

“Agriculture is such a big part of our economy,” Hobbs added. “We need to keep goods and services flowing.”

The state allows local taxes for capital improvements to be placed before voters. Previous sales tax measures for infrastructure improvement were passed by sizable margins.

Work on bridges over the past three decades have left county roads in good shape, Hobbs noted. But he cautioned that there is always repair and replacement work to do, especially on small features.

In fact, he pointed out, “we have more projects to do than we can get done.”

The funding will help the county contract out some of the construction work.

The measure will appear on the April 6 ballot in all Audrain County precincts and specifies that funding will go toward “replacing small road structures and the maintenance of bridges and related purposes.”