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This year's severe weather coupled with increasing fuel and construction costs could lead motorists down bumpy roads in coming years.

Roads and highways in southern Wisconsin scheduled to receive major repairs may only get temporary fixes as some counties affected by flooding scale back road repairs and maintenance in an effort to balance already over-budget highway departments.

Of the roughly 13 counties affected by flooding this summer, at least nine have exceeded their winter snow removal and maintenance budget or are facing unbudgeted cleanup costs — many a combination of the two.

Snow plowing, flooding, rising costs — "it makes for trying times," said Tom Jean, Lafayette County highway commissioner. "We're just in a maintenance mode and getting by with what we've got."

Daniel Fedderly, executive director of the Wisconsin County Highway Association, said this year's "perfect storm" of extreme weather, increased costs and construction demands is the worst he's seen in his 30 years in the transportation business.

"I don't think that I can recall any time when all those elements have come together at one time," he said.

The result is delayed road projects that will lead to more pot holes, cracked roads and low, rutted shoulders.

"I'm fairly confident (motorists) are going to start to see road conditions in Wisconsin not as good as they've seen in the past," he said.

And putting off routine repairs today will only exacerbate the problems tomorrow.

Roads where maintenance has been pushed off for two or three years look as though they've been ignored much longer, said Ben Coopman, Rock County's public works director.

"All of a sudden there's going to be the public outcry, 'How come you let all these roads go?'?" he said.

It's not just the roads that are wearing down — so is the equipment.

Lafayette County should be buying a lot more equipment and doing much more resurfacing, but "we're going to have to tighten our belt," Jean said. "(There's) just no money out there."

So far Lafayette County has postponed a 7-mile paving project and bridge replacement on Highway N. The county also is doing less seal-coating — using a thin layer of oil and rock on existing asphalt to preserve the road — than normal.

Grant County Highway Commissioner Dave Lambert said his county will reduce the amount of asphalt paving it does this year from 30 miles to 20 and has eliminated all its seal coating this summer.

The state Department of Transportation has reordered and scaled back its summer projects to ensure highways were cleared of debris and broken pavement was replaced after the flooding, said David Vieth, DOT director of the bureau of highway operations.

Because of that, "a whole lot of work we would have expected to do isn't getting done," such as routine pavement repairs and cleaning drainage structures, he said.

In Jefferson County, where flooding continued last month even as waters in other areas of the state receded, officials still are trying to assess how the flooding will affect highway work scheduled for this summer.

Several major highway projects were suspended for up to four weeks while highway crews sandbagged to keep critical highways open and waste treatment plants operational, said Bill Kern, the county's highway commissioner. "We did have to delay quite a bit of our project work."

Even before the flooding started, the county was running $175,000 over budget for snow plowing after record snowfall hit the region last winter. That could climb to $300,000 if more plowing is needed before the end of the year.

In addition "now we've spent nearly $250,000 on the flood," Kern said.

Usually the department would spend money fixing the roads after the floods, Kern said. But this summer, the department spent most of the money on the machinery, materials and staff hours needed for flood control.

The county's losses may be partially offset by grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But, like other counties in the region, Jefferson County may have to transfer money intended for other purposes from its general fund to highway maintenance.

And while FEMA money might help with this year's flood cleanup, highway commissioners already are worried about how high costs will affect future budgets.

"We don't know what's going to come next year," Kern said.