Floyd County Public Works Director Michael Skeen is asking for $900,000 to be set aside in each of the next two years to repave sections of 21 county roads.

During a budget workshop session Tuesday, Skeen told the Floyd County Commission that about $700,000 a year — enough to resurface 12 miles — would come from the state through the Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant program. The rest would be for the local match and a reserve in case of emergency.

“We don’t know what could happen,” Skeen said. “We could have a culvert blow and wash out a road, and then we’d be back for money that wasn’t budgeted.”

The roads or road sections to be paved by the summer of 2013 are Ramblewood Drive, Mark Street, Violet Street, Minshew Road, Glen View Drive, Lynn Drive, Timberwood Drive, Deason Road, Donahoo Road, Gentry Road and Everett Springs Road.

The schedule for 2014 includes Spouts Spring Road, Plainville Road, Powell Road, Cypress Street, Warren Road, Looney Road, Sleepy Hollow Road, Tumlin Drive, Old Burkhalter Road and Spruce Street.

“If it’s not on that list, it’s not going to get paved in the next two years,” Skeen said. “That’s all the money available.”

County Manager Blaine Williams said the county has more than 730 miles of paved roads and the asphalt lasts about 18 years.

That means the department should be resurfacing about 40 miles a year to keep up with the deterioration.

But the schedule was put on hold in 2008, when the economy tanked.

“It’s a strategy many communities are employing to scale back expenses,” Williams said. “Now the economy is coming back, but we’re behind schedule.”

The county paved 12 miles in 2011, and it completed 23 miles in 2012 by scraping up $1.4 million to capture an expiring $1 million state grant.

Skeen said the $624,933 LMIG award for 2012, to be used by the summer of 2013, doesn’t require a local match — but a 30-percent match will be needed when the department uses the $731,005 slated to be awarded in 2013.

“We’ll have to meet that, but we can do it through in-kind labor,” he noted.

The Georgia General Assembly set the 30-percent match as a penalty for regions that did not pass their T-SPLOST transportation sales tax packages in March. Unless new legislation changes it, the requirement will apply to all future state road money awards.