Effingham County will reimburse the state Department of Transportation for leveling and paving on Hodgeville Road, under a proposal county commissioners approved Tuesday.

Widening and resurfacing of Hodgeville Road will be conducted simultaneously for the length of the road from its intersection with Blue Jay Road to the Effingham-Chatham county line.

"It’s a project we were looking at doing anyway," said county public works engineer Toss Allen. "It saves us a little bit of money."

The length of road involved is 5.3 miles, and the project is expected to be put out for bid in the fall. Because of that, the project will be included in the next fiscal year budget, Allen said. The project will be paid for out of special purpose local option sales tax revenues and is estimated to cost $663,000.

The state Department of Transportation is working on improving what are seen as high-risk rural roads and will be widening Hodgeville Road by two feet on each side. Sand Hill Road also will be widened by two feet under the high-risk rural road improvement effort.

Allen said the best alternative was to have one contractor do all the work, marrying the overlay contract with the DOT’s widening work.

"It’s possible there could be two different contractors," he said. "We don’t want them to have to widen the road, re-stripe the road and then us go get another contractor and to pay to re-stripe the road."

The DOT has agreed to include the leveling and resurfacing work in the contract, if the county agrees to reimburse the state for additional costs that are part of the resurfacing and leveling.

Allen said the intersection at Hodgeville and Blue Jay roads will not be reconfigured. Utility relocation of a force main sewer there was deemed to be excessive. But the county will put in a right-turn lane and a center turning lane when an overlay is done for Blue Jay Road and that road is widened by two feet.