Faulty road materials could cost Buffalo Grove millions

Buffalo Grove faces millions in street reconstruction costs due to faulty road materials used in the 1970s and 1980s, the village engineer told the village board at this week's committee-of-the-whole meeting.

The warning comes just two years after the village embarked upon the largest street maintenance program in its history. In 2012, the village issued $6 million in debt and was able to resurface almost 17.5 miles of roads, greatly reducing the backlog of streets needing improvement to two miles.

But now the village may have to break that record.

Village Engineer Darren Monico told the board that the village needs to reconstruct 30 miles of roads, 26 of those “poz” roads.

Pozzuolanic, or poz, is a base material used in the 1970s and early 1980s. It degrades over time, causing road failure and making it necessary to reconstruct the road, which is four times more costly than a normal resurfacing.

“It really holds water, and it's very poor material,” he said, adding it eventually turns into sand.

Monico said that all suburbs are struggling with the problem. At one point, he said, the village was recycling the material, resulting in further road failures. The good news, Monico said, is that the village realized the danger in the mid-1990s and quickly adjusted.

Finance Director Scott Anderson said the village would need to borrow in the neighborhood of $35 million for the first 10-year period to cover the anticipated costs of resurfacing and reconstruction.

“It would essentially double the entire levy,” he said, saying that someone with a $300,000 home would pay an extra $200 per year just for the debt service.

Borrowing over a 20-year period for $80 million in anticipated costs, the levy 25 years down the road would be triple the amount today, with the impact on that same homeowner being $265, he said.

Village Manager Dane Bragg said that one of the challenges is that the village does not have a dedicated user charge for roads, relying instead on motor fuel taxes, which have been declining, and the home rule sales tax, which has been relatively flat.

“We simply can't keep up, given the needs that we have and the funding sources that we have right now,” Bragg said. He said there will be no impact on the 2015 budget and further discussions will take place over the next several months.