Funds can only be used for street paving, sidewalks

The Cities of Aragon, Cedartown and Rockmart along with the County government will be getting some help on providing some more paving mileage – or new sidewalks – through the area as spring and summer bring opportunities to fix or replace asphalt.

Local Road Assistance money added to the FY 2024 state budget as an amendment is providing more than $1.3 million additional dollars to Polk County’s local governments, and is being administered by the state’s Local Maintenance and Improvement Grants (LMIG) administrators.

County government is getting the lion’s share of that funding – a total of nearly $1 million – and the rest is being split between Cedartown, Rockmart and Aragon for additional paving assistance.

This is on top of LMIG funding that is provided annually to the municipalities totaling just over $1 million combined allowing for assistance toward the cost of paving locally.

Local Road Assistance – LRA – funding added in this year’s state budget can only be used for additional paving or repair or addition of sidewalks throughout the county or cities.

The county already has approved plans during the April session to utilize LRA money for paving on roadways this year. Cedartown is working on their plans currently, as well as Rockmart.

All told, the state this year in the amended budget passed by the State Legislature and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides an additional $250 million for local municipalities to tap into for paving and sidewalk work.

Cities and counties are being apportioned the funding based on their annual LMIG appropriations.