"Make no mistake," highway commissioner Bob Morehouse warned the county's safety committee last week, "if things keep going like they are going, we're going to have to look at cutting services."

"We might have to stop mowing the ditches, we may have to stripe roads every other year or look at cutting back other places," he continued.

Taken individually, it may not seem like much, but overall, it impacts not just motorist safety but public safety as well.

Because August is the start of budget time, the time when each department in Burnett County submits its operating budget for the following year, Morehouse was presenting his $1.6 million budget to the committee.

"It was a difficult task for us to make our numbers come in at the one percent increase we were asked to meet," he said.

He said material costs are continually skyrocketing.

"Last year we paid $40.15 per ton for road salt. We just got the new prices and it's up to $82.78 a ton — a 106 percent increase. The cost of sand is up too," Morehouse stated.

Because the county needs the salt and sand for its winter maintenance needs, "we're going to have to deal with it."

But when prices jump like that, the fallout is immediately seen.

"Because salt is $100,000 more than we anticipated, the County Road H project had to be scrubbed for the year," he reasoned.

Between climbing material prices and what amounts to a freeze in terms of budgeting, the highway department is feeling the pinch.

"We have less and less wiggle room," Morehouse told committee members. "We have cut projects to the point where we are at rock bottom."

"We're down to a mile and three-quarter of new blacktop because of the prices," he said of 2009 projects. "And the only reason is there is no federal aid money tied to it."

He said that number is down from 10 to 12 miles of new blacktop just four years ago.

Plus, the department won't be employing three to four college students next summer like they've done in years past.

"The work those students did will have to be absorbed by our regular workers," Morehouse pointed out.

A portion of Morehouse's budget deals with vehicle and equipment replacement, and the budget he presented last Wednesday calls for the purchase of two dump trucks during 2009.

"Since I've been at the highway department, I've never seen only two purchases for the year," he said. "It's shocking."

The road maintenance picture didn't always look so bleak.

"They used to have gas tax indexing which meant anyone who bought gas in Wisconsin helped pay for road maintenance," Morehouse explained. "But the government did away with it."

"It might get to the point where we need to look at other ways to get money — like a wheel tax, for instance," he concluded.

A wheel tax is a method of taxation commonly used by cities and counties.

The problem that a wheel tax attempts to solve is that many people come into a community from outside to work — using the communities roads, water, sewer, and so forth, but pay no taxes into the community as a result of living outside of the municipality.

The tax is charged to motorists based upon the number of wheels their vehicles have, often collected at the time of vehicle registration or tag renewals.

The budget was approved and will be forwarded to the county's administration committee for final approval.