Commissioners award more than $9 million in road and utility contracts

The Carroll County Board of Commissioners on April 30 approved a package of public-works contracts covering road resurfacing, pavement-preservation treatments, culvert repairs and a water-plant pump replacement.

Procurement and the divisions of engineering, roads and utilities presented the recommendations. The largest award was the 2026 hot-mix asphalt paving contract to Gray and Son Inc. for $7,870,416.80 to pave approximately 18 miles of county roadways; staff said work includes full-depth reclamation, milling, placement of base and surface course, inlet and storm drain work, and other incidental items with an approximate 120 working-day schedule.

Other awards and approvals included: a $861,217.55 chip-seal contract with American Paving Fabrics Inc. covering roughly 7.07 miles (plus additional gravel-road chip-seal work of about 7.41 miles); a $355,882.73 contract for microsurfacing (slurry) with Slurry Pavers Inc.; a $59,112 purchase of shotcrete lining services for two failing culvert pipes on Waterville Road from ProShot Concrete Inc.; a $214,379 contract to Kibler Construction Company for pipe replacement and new headwalls on East Nicodemus Road (HDPE pipe upsizing and MDE permit obtained); and a $50,000 contract to Progress Marine Inc. to replace a failed submerged raw-water pump at the Freedom District Water Treatment Plant.

Commissioners asked operational questions about procurement methods, piggybacking contracts, bidder counts and engineering design for upsized pipes; staff said several awards piggyback on competitively bid contracts from neighboring jurisdictions, that bid competition existed for many items, and that Engineering designed the pipe upsizing based on flow analysis. Each contract was moved, seconded and approved by the board.

Work start dates and details vary by award; staff said pipe and headwall work on Nicodemus Road is planned to start in June once school is out and detours are installed.