Road Millage Renewal 2025-2034

The city is nearing completion of the current 10-year road millage (2015-2024). This program has funded improvements on most of the city's local, residential streets.


The city is introducing a November 2023 ballot proposal to renew the road millage for another ten years (2025-2034), and restore the full millage rate of 2.5-mill with a primary focus on major roads. In addition to major road improvements, funding will be set aside each year to continue maintenance work on local roads and sidewalks.

Picture of completed Main Street resurfacing project, looking south
Concrete paver
2022 JT Mast Jul 12 006
2022 JT Mast Jul 12 003
Concrete finishing
2022 JT Mast Jul 12 016

Road Millage Renewal Information

How much does it cost?

2.5 mill equals $2.50 for every $1000 in property tax value of your home. For example, a home with a taxable value of $100,000 would pay $250 for the road millage portion of your taxes each year. Scroll down to use our millage calculator to estimate your contribution.

How much will it generate?

Renewing the road millage at the full 2.5-mill is expected to provide approximately $8 million in funding each year, for a total road budget of approximately $10.5 million per year.map thumbnail Opens in new window

What roads will be improved and when?

A preliminary schedule for major road improvements is mapped at the following link. The schedule was outlined based partly on geography, attempting to keep roadwork spaced apart to avoid significant congestion in one area.  The city also used PASER ratings to help determine the priority of streets.

Click the map thumbnail to view a GIS map of the preliminary schedule for the road millage renewal (subject to change)


What work will be performed if the millage is renewed?

The major road projects are primarily asphalt resurfacing improvements, and the city would seek to incorporate green infrastructure where feasible.  Roads that have been recently improved are also shown on the linked map above, and these roads would continue to be joint sealed to extend their pavement life. An average of $7.6 million is budgeted for major road improvements each year.

The city also plans to continue maintenance and upgrades on local roads and to perform sidewalk ramp upgrades throughout the city to ensure ADA-compliant ramps. Once the current 6-year sidewalk program is complete in 2026, the city would also plan to use the millage funds to continue cyclical sidewalk maintenance repairs throughout the city for the remaining years of the millage. An average of $2.9 million is budgeted for local road and sidewalk upgrades each year.

When will this be voted on?

This will be brought before the taxpayers on the November 07, 2023 ballot.

How does the city currently fund major road projects?

Our current plan for major roads is based on the following types of funding:

Act 51 funding (guaranteed)

Act 51 funding is distributed to all communities in Michigan and is funded through vehicle registration fees and fuel taxes.  This funding is used for snowplowing, pothole patching, traffic control and traffic signal maintenance.  The city budgets a portion of the funding, roughly $2.5 million per year, for capital improvements on roads.  Royal Oak does not use property tax revenue or any other general revenue for major road improvements.

Transportation Improvement Program funding (competitive)

The Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) is used to provide federal funding of road infrastructure improvement projects.   Royal Oak is part of the Oakland County Federal Aid Committee (OCFAC), which administers the TIP program for communities in our region.

In 2018, OCFAC changed the initial allotment for grant distribution, setting aside nearly 70% of available TIP funds to the Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC), leaving little for local municipalities.  Royal Oak continues to aggressively pursue these grants, and has been able to win funding for roughly 1 to 1.5 miles of road work each year for 2023 through 2027.   That said, many of our major roads have lower traffic volumes which would never score high enough to win the competitive federal grant funding. Using the city’s major road fund is likely the only way to improve these types of roads (Catalpa, Normandy, Fourth Street, etc.)

Based on Act 51 revenues and typical maintenance expenditures each year, the city can rely on approximately $2.5 million to be available per year for major road projects using only the city’s Act 51 funding.  While this may seem like a large amount, it typically can only cover one to two miles of major road work per year.  Based on the latest PASER data for major roads (2021) not improved under the current millage (51 miles), there are currently 32 miles of road in poor condition, or approximately 62% of the network.

Millage Estimator


You can calculate an estimate of your contribution based on the proposed millage rate.
Enter the Taxable Value of your property, and click on the calculate button.
 
Step 1. Enter your Taxable Value:
(If you are not sure what the taxable value of your property is, you can find it using the Oakland County Property Gateway link below.)		 $
 
 
Resulting Estimated Contribution  

Find the Taxable Value of Your Property

Find the taxable value of your property using the Oakland County Property Gateway. All you need is your address.

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