The counties along the Indiana Toll Road received extra money from the state when the highway was leased.

Fred Garvin from South Bend wants to know, “What is St. Joseph County doing with the extra money from the Toll Road lease?”

The bumpy ride that winter left behind has had many drivers asking us about Toll Road lease money.

Each county the road runs through received an extra $40 million. For St. Joseph County, $20.6 million went specifically to county government.

County Commissioner Mark Dobson says so far about $3 million of the Toll Road lease money has been spent. The county approved a 10-year spending plan last year for Major Moves money. But Dobson is about to ask the County Council to approve spending another million and a half earlier than expected to clean up roads that are now in bad shape from the bad winter.

“What we do know with the plan is it's a big fluid. We look at the winter like we had, realize we need to take additional money from Major Moves,” said Dobson.

Dobson hopes the County Council will approve the money at their July meeting, so drivers would notice improvements by August and September.

Over the course of the 10-year Major Moves spending plan St. Joseph County expected to earn $6.5 million of interest from the lease money.

Under that plan, about $4.5 million in would be left over at the end of those 10 years.