Jones County received the second largest amount of state aid for road construction, maintenance and repair of any county in Mississippi this year, County Engineer Ronnie Clark told supervisors Monday. He said the county’s share – 2.6 percent of the total available to counties – is second only behind Rankin County.

He told supervisors the county has $3.2 million in unobligated state aid road funds.

One project to be let by the end of September is the reconstruction of the lower end of Monroe Road, near the Jones-Forrest county line. Clark said the project needs to be let by Sept. 30 in order to qualify for federal funds.

“This project will be funded by the HRR (High Risk Rural Risks) program due to the number of fatalities on the road,” Clark said. “The lower end curve will be reconstructed.”

Clark said one right-of-way needs to be secured on one piece of property in the curve. He said it should be acquired within the next two weeks.

Clark also told supervisors that $1.3 million is available for the county’s bridge program. He suggested reducing the scope of a proposed county resurfacing program in order to fund a striping project and also to work on a road project in Eastabuchie. A bid of $2.5 million was received last week on the resurfacing project, but Clark suggested that supervisors eliminate five roads from the project, based on maintenance reports. Supervisors approved Clark’s suggestion.

Clark said the Federal Highway Trust Fund “went broke” earlier this month due to the collection of lower fuel taxes because of reduced gas sales. “Gas sales went down and the taxes didn’t come in,” he said. He said Congress funneled $8 billion into the fund. “Right now, funding of projects is shaky.”

The Jones County Justice Court office requested the supervisors purchase a metal detector for the court system. County Administrator Charles Miller said the last metal detector the county bought was for youth court at a cost of $2,485. The board voted to buy the court a metal detector.

The county received two bids for motorcycles to be used by the sheriff’s office for patrol. Chunky River Harley Davidson of Meridian submitted a bid of $18,607.86 each for 2009 Road Kings and Southern Thunder Harley Davidson of Horn Lake bid $18,572 each. Supervisors accepted the Chunky River bid – $35 higher than the Southern Thunder bid – because the Meridian store would be closer for servicing the motorcycles.