The Lycoming County commissioners are expected Thursday to consider the distribution of $150,000 in county liquid fuels funds to all 52 county municipalities.
On Tuesday, county Transportation Planner Mark Murawski said the annual allocation will be distributed based on each municipality's road miles and population.
Liquid fuels funds are monies raised by the state through a tax on gasoline. The money is to be used for road and bridge maintenance.
The state distributes the money directly to municipalities, but also gives some of it to the counties, Murawski said.
While the county is under no legal obligation to distribute its portion of the funding, it has chosen to do so municipalities can use the money to augment their own liquid fuels funds.
"We do it because we are aware of the fact that they have a backlog of road and bridge work," he said.
In addition to allocating funding directly to municipalities, the county also set aside a portion of its liquid fuels funds for a grant program. That program, however, has been put on hold due to stagnant allocations from the state, Murawski said.
"There are not enough funds to recapitalize the grant program," he said.
Murawski said he "finds it interesting" that, in spite of the increase in local truck traffic due to the Marcellus Shale, the county has received no additional liquid fuels revenue.
Murawski said municipalities may opt to use gas drilling impact fee revenue for road and bridge projects.
"The news is not all bad," he said.
In other business, the commissioners will consider submission of a 911 Plan to the Federal Communications Commission.
The plan, which must be submitted every three years, details how the county plans to use funds raised through a monthly fee on telephone land lines, John Yingling, director of the county Department of Public Safety, said.
Each of the 63,000 land lines in the county is assessed a $1.25 fee per month that is used to fund emergency communications, Yingling said.
The number of land lines is decreasing due to an increase in people relying exclusively on cellphones, Yingling said.
"The trend is less hard wire phones and more cellphones," he said, adding that about 60 percent of the calls the county 911 Center receives are from cellphones.
Projects that will be paid for through the fee program include upgrading computer aided dispatch equipment at the 911 Center, replacing equipment buildings at the Bald Eagle and Shrivers Ridge communication tower sites, converting some emergency channels to high frequency and paying back a bond issue used to upgrade emergency communication towers in the county, Yingling said.
