State officials report spending $5,333,278 on Lexington County roads.

That compares with $3,614,342 spent on Richland County roads.

Greenville County leads the list with $11,190,602.

Tiny Jasper County where I-95 enters from Georgia was next at $9,783,577.

Florence County, home of Sen. Hugh Leatherman, Senate Finance Committee chairman received only $2,458,312.

The money comes from the rising state gas tax.

The Department of Transportation wants to fix the state’s bad roads and bridges over 10 years but may not hit that target at the rate it is going.

From July 1, 2017, when the gas-tax-hike law took effect, through April of this year, DOT says it completed $47.5 million in projects, according to its most recently released records.

That amount is just 4.7% of the $1 billion in road and bridge work statewide that DOT has identified, and the completed projects were done over 22 months, which represents 18% of the 10-year plan.

Relatively little has been spent and few projects have been completed under the 2017 law.

Of the $657.3 million in total collected revenues in the first 22 months of the law, $130.8 million, or about 20%, was paid to vendors for “completed work” according to agency records.

Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve ( www.thenerve.org). Contact him at 803-254-4411 or rick@thenerve.org .