NORTHSIDERS COULD SOON see a portion of their streets repaved - a very small portion.

Jackson city officials are planning to repave about 13 miles of the city’s most dilapidated thoroughfares this year. To aid the city in its efforts, Hinds County has thrown in its support and funding to pave a few additional miles.

Thelman Boyd, the city’s public works director, agreed that 13 miles doesn’t cover a lot of distance, especially when compared to the city’s 1,400 miles of paved roadway.

But the city doesn’t have a lot of money to work with. And, to worsen matters, Jackson doesn’t have enough funding to make a dent in the $50 million in road problems that need immediate attention.

To enable crews to repave as much roadway as possible, the City Council passed a slight property tax increase in 2006.

At the same time, the city created a three-year overlay project.

Boyd said the tax increase has brought in about a million dollars in additional revenue, enough to repave a baker’s dozen of miles.

The increase also sets a milestone, of sorts, for his department. “This is the first money we’ve had solely for resurfacing,” he said. “Prior to this, we had about $250,000 in our general fund for street repaving, and that doesn’t do a lot.”

Carl Frelix, Jackson’s infrastructure manager, said it costs the city about $70,000 to repave a mile of road surface using in-house crews. If the city uses independent contractors to do the job, the cost would more than double to $165,000.

The county will chip in this year to help the city. Board of Supervisors President Doug Anderson said the county has allocated a million dollars to resurface streets.

He said supervisors in each district, including District One Supervisor Charles Barbour, were given $200,000 for improvements. “Any supervisor can designate a road or use it as a supplement to pave any road in the county,” Anderson said.

Barbour couldn’t be reached for comment. Anderson, who represents District Two, said he didn’t know how Barbour had chosen to use the money.

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST time the county has given money to the city to repave roads. The board also allocated funds in Frank Melton’s first year in office and under the Harvey Johnson and Kane Ditto administrations.

“We didn’t plan to give the money, but we decided to put it in our street resurfacing program,” he said. “We have about $3.5 million left from a bond for renovations of county buildings.”

Earlier, the county considered repaving a stretch of Ridgewood Road. However, the project would’ve cost between $600,000 and $700,000, a little rich for the county’s blood at the time, he said.

The county did, however, recently repave a portion of Meadowbrook Road.

Ward One Councilman Jeff Weill, though, would like to use a portion of the city’s funds to pave the most in-need stretches of the road. He said the road is a major gateway to North Jackson.

The city evaluates streets using a road management system. Based on the condition of the road, the streets are rated using a point system of zero to 1,000, Boyd said. A 1,000 rating is a perfect road.

Frelix said roads with a score of 300 or less usually take top priority. During the previous budget year, several Northside roads with low scores were included in the repaving project.

Among those were portions of Avery Circle and Riverwood Drive in Ward One. And in Ward Seven, Gillespie Street, Mayes Street and West Street were included.

The city has also used federal and state funding to pave some roads. Work is expected to begin soon on a roughly $1.2 million project to upgrade Woodrow Wilson Drive from I-55 to Mill Street.

The Woodrow Wilson project is being partially funded through a federal grant administered through the state Department of Transportation. In addition to the overlay, the project calls for installing new handicapped safety devices along the street.

Superior Asphalt is the firm completing the project.

Frelix said grants aren’t available for all road projects, though. Usually, the city has to front the entirety of the bill to repair neighborhood roadways.

WEILL SAID HE doesn’t know which roadways will be repaved in Ward One this year. He said he still has to meet with public works officials as well as evaluate road conditions.

He said he’ll probably recommend that a portion of Ridgewood Road be repaved and other city funds would be used on other streets in the ward.

In addition, he plans to work with county officials to make sure the $200,000 planned for roads in the Northside will benefit the most motorists. “I don’t want to exclude anyone,” he said. “But we’re not going to be able to do much.”