2009-02-AU Limited Scope Performance Audit of the Highway Fund

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Chapter 4: CHALLENGES FACING THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS the life of pavement may save up to four dollars in future rehabilitation costs, points to the cost benefit of implementing a preventative road maintenance program. [Source: NCHRP Synthesis 223: Cost - Effective Preventative Pavement Maintenance. Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, DC, 1996, p.2.] FINDING: 'Roads in limbo' refers to roads that were laid out by the government, but are not part of the State road system and are not Maintenance of currently maintained by the County government. As of February CountCount roads -in- 2009, the County's website Roads in Limbo Fact Sheet states: y "[T]here are 408.9 miles of Roads in Limbo located island wide. Of limbo still in that, 122.6 miles exist and are recognized as government or homestead roads. There are also 286.3 miles of paper roads; rights limbo. of way that are shown on tax maps, but have not yet been built. The County has now accepted responsibility for maintaining 122.6 miles of existing Roads in Limbo." The State's Deputy Attorney General in 1963, Op. 63 -54, referred to a real property parcel reserved for a road that had never been opened, laid out, or built as a "paper" road. When the auditors requested documentation of the policy and criteria used to accept 122.6 miles out of the 408.9 miles of disputed roads -in- limbo, a DPW Division Chief responded, "I don't know. Corporation Counsel, myself and others are supposed to come up with some sort of policy." Without a policy and criteria for determining if a road had been opened, laid out, or built, the question is raised as to how the County determined that 122.6 miles exist and the rest of the roads are "paper" roads. The State has established that along with other duties, the County has the duty to maintain and repair all county highways: Section 265A -1, HRS, provides as follows: "County authority. The several councils or other governing bodies of the several political subdivisions of the State shall have the general supervision, charge, and control of, and the duty to maintain and repair, all county highways, bikeways, and sidewalks and shall have the power to determine the terms under which irrigation or drainage ditches, flumes, railroads, including plantation railroads and similar structures, telephone, electric light and power lines and pipes and other conduits may be maintained upon, under, over, and across the same, and the councils or other governing bodies may make all regulations needful for the public convenience and safety in all cases where permission has been or may be granted to maintain the ditches, railroads, pipes, or other structures across, under, over, and upon all county highways. All other law to the 19