For more than 50 years, Buckeye Hills Regional Council has worked with southeast Ohio communities to access resources that further their community and economic development goals. State and federal investments in basic infrastructure have been central in building southeast Ohio’s economy. Yet today, the region’s need for more and better infrastructure is acute.
Working with local leaders, Buckeye Hills Regional Council has identified 173 public projects totaling $246,184,224 in unmet infrastructure investments. Additionally, Buckeye Hills Regional Council estimates that to provide all households in the region with high-speed broadband will require an investment of $492,000,000, bringing southeast Ohio’s total infrastructure needs to $738,184,224.
“Unfunded and aging infrastructure, in addition to its health and safety impacts, has a cascading impact on our region’s economy, impacting business productivity, gross domestic product, employment, personal income, and regional competitiveness,” says Misty Crosby, Executive Director of Buckeye Hills Regional Council. “Continued investment in these resources is critical to ensuring southeast Ohio’s prosperity, health, and wellbeing.”
Governor Mike DeWine’s “Investing in Ohio” Executive Budget Proposal includes $100 million per year for 2022 and 2023 designated for community infrastructure, in addition to the state’s conventional infrastructure programs.
“Buckeye Hills Regional Council has worked with our members and community leaders to identify 19 ‘shovel ready’ water and sewer projects totaling $106,977,412 that would improve or deliver service to 9,384 households and 395 businesses in southeast Ohio,” says Crosby. “If the dollars were made available, communities could begin immediately to realize these projects, as studies and plans have been conducted to demonstrate the projects are feasible.”
Southeast Ohio’s counties, cities, and villages frequently find themselves unable to compete for funding in the state’s infrastructure programs. As policymakers draft the guidelines for the governor’s requested community infrastructure investments, Buckeye Hills Regional Council is recommending the state direct funding to communities that have documented difficulty meeting conventional eligibility thresholds and securing grant funding, direct funding to communities with populations less than 75,000, avoid income-based threshold requirements, and reduce matching requirements.
“Time after time, BHRC has witnessed funding applications for local projects fall apart due to the inability of cash-strapped rural communities to provide sufficient matching funds or check all the boxes for population and income,” says Crosby. “These recommendations would enable the vast majority of southeast Ohio’s communities to compete for funding.”
In 2015, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that every dollar spent on infrastructure brought an economic benefit of up to $2.20. The projects Buckeye Hills Regional Council has identified–from water and sewer to broadband represent a potential economic benefit of more than $1.62 billion for southeast Ohio.