POPLARVILLE — Despite a lengthy agenda for Pearl River County supervisors Wednesday the board handled many of the items with a straight up and down 5-0 vote.

One of the items that became more involved was a update on road and bridge repair and replacement from county engineer Les Dungan that started with little fanfare.

Dungan started by saying he did not have much to report but ended up with a longer discussion on a potential funding shortage for some projects of bridge replacement.

He said the county had been cleared for a bridge replacement on Barth Road that had been on hold because of funding but has since been released, to which the board agreed.

He said funds for this type of project are scheduled as state and Federal money is available. The current project awaiting funding approval is a bridge on Savannah-Millard Road. The pre-construction portions of the project are complete, he said, and when funds are released requests for bids can be sent out.

Following a question from Supervisor Anthony Hales on the funding status for LSVP road projects, Dungan said while that source had not been funded this year this was only the second time in its 16 years that had happened and that was again due to a budget crisis.

He said for the last two years the state has funded the LSVP program through sales of bonds but the $20 million bond measure bill that included the LSVP program was defeated when it came up for a vote of the Senate. The measure had come out of its Senate committee.

Dungan said he hoped there would be a special session that would bring the matter back for consideration.

At present, he said the county is working on an advanced credit formula that is allowing the county to draw on LSVP funding. That formula is based on the county’s portion of an anticipated 4-year LSVP fund. Pearl River County’s part of the $80 million fund total is approximately two percent, Dungan said.

This is allowing the county to make plans and continue with bridge projects, he said, “as long as the balance of cash is there to fund the project. (But,) It will run out.”

“We will reach a point where we cannot let a LSVP project, but we are still able to plan, survey and design these project.”

Lumpkin said another fund that was tied up in the bond issue was the Rural Fire Truck acquisition program and he has heard that Gov. Phil Bryant is intending to call a special session that may include both funds.

Hales asked if a situation might occur with a bridge that would isolate some residents if it was not repaired and would this funding issue affect that. Dungan said something similar has occurred in the past but because of yearly bridge inspections any repairs were dealt with before an emergency could arise.

In a related matter, Dungan said a resurfacing project on West Union Road should be complete as of last Wednesday, and similar work on Caesar Road begun. These projects use a new ultra-thin surface mix that is hoped will be a more economical repair mix. He said initial reports are that the surfaces seems to be at least as smooth as previous surfaces. The county had checked on other roads with this surface in other counties that appeared to be holding up well.

other matters the board:

— Received two bids for asphalt: Warren Paving of $60.75 per ton and Huey Stockstill of $56 per ton and accepted the low bid. Received janitorial services bids for the DHS/Justice Court building at Millard from: Dunn Maintenance Co., $1,100 per month; Jani-King, $1,700 per month; Crystal Clear Cleaning Specialists, $1,144 per month; and Dragon Commercial Building Service, $1,948.78 per month. Accepted the low bid.

— Received a draft of a Gravel Road Adoption Process and discussed the status of roads in a Type 4 subdivision having gravel roads and whether or not the county would be obligated to maintain those roads if the subdivision was accepted into the county road system. After the discussion a motion was made and approved unanimously to accept the document as presented.

— Approved signing a $10,000 MDOT contract for new county aerial maps. Two county residents questioned whether the same information was available online at a site such as Google Maps and could be accessed freely. Lumpkin said the state tax commission does not allow them to operate completely off the Internet and mandates the use of approved tax maps.

— Received a report on the progress in construction of the three new storm shelters in the county. Emergency management director Danny Manley said the footings had been poured at the Poplarville location and was on schedule for a January, 2013 completion.

— Noted that an agreement had been reached with the Dept. of Marine Resources to establish a weather station at Walkiah Bluff and the county weather station now there probably would be moved to another location.

— Approved advertising the 18-wheeler mobile command unit. The equipment, which was from a drug forfeiture, was only used once or twice a year.

— Went into closed session to determine the need for an executive session on pending litigation and economic development.

— Adjourned until Monday, June 4.