Highway Commissioner’s Responsibilities

The township highway commissioner is an elected official and is in charge of all roads and bridges in the road district.

The road commissioner annually submits the tax levies for the following year. They are submitted to the town board of trustees so that they may be certified and filed no later than the last Tuesday in December. The certificate of levy, so submitted by the highway commissioner, may not be increased or decreased in any way by the town board of trustees. It must be certified to the county clerk in the amount determined by the highway commissioner.

Each spring, thirty days prior to the adoption of the budget and appropriation ordinance for road purposes, the highway commissioner must submit to the clerk and to the town board, a tentative budget and appropriation ordinance. This budget shall be available for public inspection for thirty days prior to final action. Once the budget and appropriation ordinance for road purposes is adopted, the road commissioner has the statutory power to expend those funds, according to the line items established in the appropriation ordinance itself.

A township road district is, in many aspects, a separate government. Neither the town board of trustees nor the township supervisor has any jurisdiction, or authority, over the road commissioner and/or employees of the road district.