A city paving project is expected to continue despite budgetcuts passed down to the Mississippi Department of Transportation,officials said.

“I don’t think it will be postponed,” said Joe Gibbs, a juniortransportation engineer with Engineering Associates working on theproject. “They told me to keep working on it.”

The paving project includes overlay work on Cherokee, Chickasawand Jackson streets, Railroad and Whitworth avenues and BrookwayBoulevard, Gibbs said. Some road striping work on Industrial ParkRoad is also included.

“It’s not the entire stretch of street that will be overlaid,”the engineer said. “Only portions of it between keyintersections.”

A construction start date on the project has not been set, Gibbssaid, but Engineering Associates has been told to complete theengineering plans by the end of the month. He expected the city torequest bids on the project within “the next few months.”

Mayor Bob Massengill said the downtown paving project remains apriority for him and board of aldermen.

“That’s something that was approved months ago and still hasn’tbeen done,” Massengill said.

Randy Emfinger, an engineer with Engineering Associates’Brookhaven office, said he has not heard of any effect the cutswould have on county projects.

“I haven’t seen any paperwork come through saying that anyfunding (for county projects) has been cut,” he said. “I reallyseen any paperwork at all, so I really don’t know.”

MDOT officials said last week that they were continuing toaddress the budget cuts, but had not made any firm decisions onwhich areas within the department would take the fundingshortfall.

“The projects that will be cut look like those in the planningstates,” said Amy Hornback, deputy director of the MDOT externalaffairs department.

Hornback said projects already slated for the 2005 have beenfunded and will continue, but the department will not be recruitingany new Local Surface Transportation Program (LSTP) projects thisyear.

MDOT was forced to make its first round of cuts last week as aresult of the transfer of $133 million this year to the stategeneral fund, according to Executive Director Larry L. “Butch”Brown.

To make up for the shortfall in funding, MDOT is deferringprojects from the LSTP until a later date. On-going projects in theprogram will not be affected, Brown said.

LSTP is a federal program in which state departments oftransportation can provide funding to municipalities for localimprovement projects, such as traffic signal installation, streetwidening and street paving or overlays.

Darrell Broome, MDOT project engineer in McComb, said his officeis expecting that some projects may be affected, and he is waitingfor the budget to be finalized and the decisions handed down.

One of the projects that may be affected by the budget cuts isthe Highway 84 expansion, Broome said. Crews are currently workingon the Highway 84 East project west of Monticello, and the pavingwork is due to be let in the next few months.

“We’re making every effort to get that project let as close toschedule as possible,” Broome said. “The ‘appearance projects’ arethe ones we may not be able to get to.”