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County preparing to address roads [Athens Daily Review, Texas :: ](Athens Daily Review (TX) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) March 08--ATHENS -- With hundreds of miles of pavement to deal with, three Henderson County Road and Bridge Precincts may soon be getting a tool to help them keep track of the tasks involved. The Henderson County Information Technology Committee discussed on Wednesday whether to acquire Precinct Tracker software and will present its findings to Commissioners Court. Pct. 2 Commissioner Wade McKinney, who is an IT Committee member said Pct. 4 has been using the software since Commissioner Ken Geeslin acquired it about three years ago. "Though precincts 1,2 and 3 do it from spreadsheets to another data base we all decided, especially the rise of the CETRZ grants that we should try to standardize our reporting," McKinney said. "Precinct Tracker was such a good performer with Ken in precinct 4 we decided to adopt it in the other precincts." In January, the commissioners completed work required to apply for about $286,000 in available funding by adopting two County Energy Transportation Reinvestment Zone areas. This required a report on all of the roads maintained by the county. "We found the need to standardize our reports," McKinney said. "That way everything is apples to apples." After completing the project, the commissioners agreed that Precinct Tracker was the most efficient of the methods used for compiling and keeping the information. MSE Solutions created the software with input from Road and Bridge commissioners in the state, managers, secretaries, and foremen. Cherokee and Ellis County are a couple that are using the software and have reported it to be successful. Ellis County reported that it was particularly useful in the aftermath of severe flooding in 2007 to report flood related work to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement. According to MSE the program can track road work costs, including labor, equipment, and materials. It can also identify high maintenance equipment, track spending for cost control and provide Incident and disaster documentation for reimbursement. ___ (c)2014 the Athens Daily Review (Athens, Texas) Visit the Athens Daily Review (Athens, Texas) at www.athensreview.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |