T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Marshall County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt addresses the Board of Supervisors about the Fiscal Year 2026 Secondary Roads budget and the five-year program during a special meeting held on Wednesday morning.

The Marshall County Board of Supervisors spent most of a 25-minute special meeting held Wednesday morning talking roads with County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt, who shared a brief breakdown of the five-year secondary roads program and some of the biggest projects on the docket along with the funding sources for them.

After a brief discussion, the board first unanimously approved a Fiscal Year 2025 Secondary Roads budget amendment and then the FY2026 secondary roads budget, which includes a total of $11,578,650, a decrease from the current fiscal year’s budget of $12,308,650. From there, Geilenfeldt dove deeper into the five-year program and noted the presence of some unique funding sources like a potential Revitalizing Iowa’s Sound Economy (RISE) grant and the County-State Traffic Engineering Program (C-STEP) for the area around the Marshall Ridge Farms expansion.

To start, Geilenfeldt detailed some projects slated for FY26 and 27, including a bridge along the Jasper County line with costs evenly shared between the two counties. He anticipates “a pretty good sized paving year” with plans to resurface Shady Oaks Road from the Marshalltown city limits almost all the way to Highway 30 along with resurfacing the entire length of County Road E29 from Marsh Avenue all the way to the Story County line at an estimated cost of $2.8 million with $1.9 million of that total coming through federal aid.

“That’ll be a big project. It’s almost 12 miles is what we’ve got there,” Geilenfeldt said.

Another bridge on the opposite side of the county — along the Hardin County line north of Liscomb — is slated for replacement on Langford Avenue over the same creek where he is considering a low-water stream crossing. A decision on the C-STEP funding for the Binford Avenue/Highway 30 intersection could come within the next few months, and Geilenfeldt confirmed that the RISE application has been received by the state.

Board Chairwoman Carol Hibbs asked him if funding notifications could affect the timeline on the projects around Marshall Ridge, but he hadn’t talked with the dairy farm’s owner, Kevin Blood, about when the expansion will begin. Geilenfeldt noted a trail crossing improvement project on the slate where it crosses Highway 330 and said some trail users have bikes that “aren’t happy on rock,” with plans to apply for Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funding.

The Eastman Avenue intersection in State Center, which has been discussed at a few previous meetings, is currently programmed for FY2028, and Geilenfeldt said his biggest concern was a potential impact to an additional parcel beyond the one just to the northeast of the intersection.

“Right now, I’m just hoping that we can get the entire project just concerning right of way acquisition from that parcel there, and then there’s a chance that we may need to get some acquisition from that next parcel to the north,” he said. “I’m hoping to avoid that. That’ll come out in project development.”

As he wrapped up his presentation, Geilenfeldt told the board the program is always subject to change, but he considered it “his best guess” for the time being.

“Thanks for the update and keeping up on everything. We appreciate it,” Supervisor Jarret Heil said.

A motion to approve the five-year program passed unanimously. During the public forum period before adjournment, Geilenfeldt also noted that he has several residents considering road vacations, and as long as an adjacent landowner doesn’t object, they usually proceed without controversy.

One under consideration is a small portion of Iowa Avenue East (old Highway 30) just outside of the Marshalltown city limits near Rasmusson Service Center, which he warned “could be kind of complicated” because of the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) ownership.

“On this one, it’s to our benefit to get this vacated because we don’t gain anything by maintaining a couple tenths of a mile of right of way. There could be a cost in doing a title search on it,” Geilenfeldt said. “I feel like it’s OK if we pay the title search cost because it benefits the county to get this done. It could be a few hundred dollars. It could be a little more than that, but I just wanted to clear with you guys that it’s OK that the county’s paying for that because I’d like to get that cleaned up.”

Hibbs asked about field access to the north, and Geilenfeldt said the adjacent landowners would have to be OK with any proposed vacation.

In other business, the board:

Read a proclamation for the National Day of Prayer.