CRAWFORD COUNTY — Danny Brown, Crawford County road consultant and bridge engineer, on Jan. 13, gave the Crawford County Commissioners an update on county bridge projects.

A change order was made to the Bass Resort bridge.

“It’s to everybody’s advantage,” Brown said. “We had approximately $32,000 left over in grant money, so we’re going to put about $24,640, something like that, into a 45-foot approach on this side of the bridge.”

Since the bridge is located in a low-lying area, a two-foot toe wall of rock is being built to help minimize wash-out issues. Both the Bass Resort and High Point bridges are on schedule.

“It might take a week or two weeks into February due to some of this extra we have to do,” Brown said.

Completion will be dependent on the weather.

A change order was made on the Sellers Road bridge.

“Due to the fact we had to drill so deep in it to the rock socket. But we’re solid. We’re good. Everything’s strong, no problems,” Brown said. “We did make a little change order on it.”

Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer agreed with Brown that it would have been foolish to spend that extra money.

“Which would have been on top of the $40,000 plus that we’re already committed to paying,” Pfeiffer said.

The schedule been pushed back because of some unsaid complications, but it should only put the bridge completion a week behind.

Crawford County Treasurer Karen Sikes gave the commissioners a small update on the county finances.

“Got our sales tax from last month, for the month of December, and it was actually up,” Sikes said. “Our general revenue is up 7.3 percent.”

According to her data, the county received almost $13 million from collections they got back for property tax, back tax, railroad and utilities.

“That was up about a million dollars from last year,” Sikes said. “People are paying their property tax on time, or there’s just more or whatever.”

She also talked about how the use tax would be beneficial to the county.

“...At the very beginning, yeah, I was kind of against another tax. I think that…the county can improve on how we spend money. There are places that we can cut back, but there are places that we can’t,” Sikes said. “…If you want to improve your life, or keep it even going, you just got to pay for it.”

Associate Commissioner of District 2 Jared Boast said he has been speaking and educating small groups of people about the use tax.

“I think it’s, everybody understands the need for (it),” Boast said.

Crawford County 911 Emergency Services Director Brad England spoke for about a minute at the Cuba Chamber of Commerce meeting about the use tax.

“I stayed for an hour afterwards, answering questions with a lot of different people, a lot of different organizations and representatives,” England said. “It was predominantly positive. There was no negative. There was some neutral. A lot of people had questions.”

Presiding Commissioner Steve Black read the ballot language for the use tax that was used during the 2025 election.

“Shall the county of Crawford impose a local use tax at the same rate as the total local sales tax rate, provided that if the local sales tax rate is reduced or raised by voter approval, the local use tax rate shall also be reduced or raised by the same action,” Black read.

Commissioners will be making a decision at the Jan. 20 meeting on whether or not to put the issue on the ballot for April.

More have asked about the county adding a tourism tax instead of a use tax.

In communication with Stephen Pilkington from the Department of Revenue, Black explained that it is not possible.

“There is no statute that we are aware of that allows a county to impose a tourism tax. This tax is specific to a city and does not include language for a county to impose one,” Black read from a response from Pilkington.

He described Community Improvement Districts (CID), such as a transportation development district (TDD) and an ambulance and fire district. They are formed by a committee and can impose a tax for purposes such as road improvement, helping to fund a project, or helping to fund ambulance or fire protection services.

“Crawford County cannot even put the tourism tax on the ballot. That came from the Department of Revenue. If anybody has any questions, that’s who they need to contact,” Black said.

In other business, at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 29, Crawford County will be holding the next budget hearing.