With the first day of the new fiscal year coming next week, public works departments across the region are gearing up to fix cracked, frost-heaved roads as the new budgets are ready to be spent.

In Gorham and Buxton, the money put aside for road projects won’t go as far as expected, and Westbrook officials are keeping a close watch on rising road construction prices.

“Definitely, we’ve recently seen an increase in asphalt prices,” Robert Burns, director of Gorham Public Works, said on Tuesday. “Since May the price for liquid asphalt … went from $400 a liquid ton to $500 a liquid ton.”

On Wednesday, pricing from SemMaterials, one of two major suppliers of liquid asphalt – the petroleum-based material that binds the aggregate in pavement – was actually at $550 a ton, up from $435 a ton on May 1, and up from $335 a year ago.

While liquid asphalt is just part of what gets put down as pavement and accounts for only 6 percent of the total price of paving, it’s indicative of the trend in road reconstruction: Rising prices are keeping roads from getting repaired.

“And, of course, the contractor (doing the road work) has to raise their prices to cover the costs of their fossil fuels,” Burns added.

In Gorham, a $3 million bond for special road projects won’t go nearly as far as town officials wanted. About half the roads the town looked at after the voters passed the bond in November will move forward. Day Road, Osborne Road and Plummer Road will get the attention they need, with Queen Street next on the list if the first three come in under budget. The town wanted to work on Finn Parker Road and North Gorham Road, but those plans have been scrapped for now.

In Buxton, Public Works Foreman Tom Kennie said the town’s four-man crew will be stretching dollars as far as they can, in part by being careful about their fuel consumption.

“We’re tarring as much as we can with the amount of money we’re receiving,” Kennie said. “It just gets harder and harder for these towns to keep up.”

“Some of the roads we aren’t going to get to because of the cost,” Kennie said.

Kennie didn’t want to provide a definitive list of road projects, but did say the town will pave portions of Cemetery Road and Turkey Lane.

Tom Eldridge, director of public services in Westbrook, said that he “figured it high” when he budgeted $440,000 for road maintenance in May, but “if (the price of paving) continues to escalate, we may have to cut back”

For now, the nine roads Westbrook planned to work on are still a go: Harrisburg Avenue, Reed Street, Scott Drive, Spring Street, Route 302, Dodge Street, Webb Street, Giles Street and High Street.

For regular road repairs and maintenance in Gorham, Burns said his department had looked at working on three miles of road, and in January put together a budget of $400,000 to cover that work for the upcoming fiscal year, with money included to keep up with inflation between then and now. But already asphalt prices have surpassed what he department had projected for inflation.

Burns said the increase will probably affect about a half-mile of road.

The increasing cost of road work is something that can add up over the years as Westbrook maintains 84 miles of road, Buxton more than 110, and Gorham more than 140. For Gorham Town Manager David Cole, the question is, “How do we get ahead?”

“It’s going to be, I think, a real big problem in the future,” Cole said.

A minivan drives down Rocky Dundee Road in Buxton this week as Keith Emery checks out a culvert being cleared of winter soil build-up by Gary Poitras. The Buxton Public Works crew is going to be watching its fuel consumption as it tries to mitigate rising oil costs that are shortening the miles of roads to be repaved, both because of transportation costs and prices of pavement.Gart Poitras of Buxton Public Works clears a culvert of winter soil build-up this week on Rocky Dundee Road. The crew is going to be watching its fuel consumption as it tries to mitigate rising oil costs that are shortening the miles of roads to be repaved, both because of transportation costs and prices of pavement.