Lawton Council to consider amending city budget, adding airport road to mill and overlay list

City Council members will be asked to make some changes to existing projects and activities today: amending the existing fiscal year budget by $43.7 million and adding King Road, the main access road to Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport, to this year’s mill and overlay priority list.

The budget amendment reflects projects council members have agreed are priorities to be funded and completed this fiscal year, but ones that were not included when the budget was originally crafted in Spring 2023. Funding for those projects comes from a variety of sources, to include the 2019 Capital Improvements Program, Hotel/Motel Tax, grant funds, the General Fund’s balance, and a loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. Funding already exists; the budget merely is being amended to reflect the projects.

The recommendation for King Road came last week from the council’s Streets and Bridges Committee, which agreed to add the road as a priority for the “On Target, On Time” mill and overlay projects already under way. City officials have approved 41 projects for that list, but only 10 were to be funded in the fiscal year that ends June 30. Ellsworth Construction was awarded that $1.55 million project late last year and already is working on the third of its 10 identified projects.

Today’s recommendation would allow city staff to let King Road for bids, meaning that work could be done this fiscal year. While a funding source was not identified in the agenda commentary, Ward 4 Councilman George Gill said there is $700,000 remaining from funding allocated for the original “Ten Wins” project because that contract came in under engineering estimates. Remaining roads on priority list won’t be done until the 2024-2025 fiscal year, after city officials identify funding.

Committee members recommended the King Road project be divided into phases, with the base bid focusing on its most deteriorated portion: the segment directly in front of the airport terminal. The road between the terminal and parking lot would be bid as Alternative 1, the remainder of the road to South 11th Street as Alternative 2. Preliminary estimates set the base bid at $278,938, while the entire road is estimated at $1.1 million.

King Road is the airport’s entrance and exit point from South 11th Street, and Ward 5 Councilman Allan Hampton, the council’s representative to the airport’s governing board, said it is critical that road be upgraded because it is a primary entrance point for visitors.