FRANKLIN — While gasoline prices have seen a pretty good bump lately, petroleum products still are well below what they were this time last year, prompting a lower bid for asphalt.

Simpson Fiscal Court on Tuesday approved the sole bid it had for asphalt from Scotty’s Contracting and Stone. The bid was $64.70 a ton for surface and $60.10 for base.

County Judge-Executive Jim Henderson said the county chose to rebid its asphalt contract rather than just take the indexed raise, which probably would have been higher.

The price was $1.77 a ton lower than the spring bid letting and more than $15 lower than July. As gas prices continue to rise into the fall, asphalt soared to $83 a ton, Henderson said.

Henderson told magistrates they had about $550,000 to spend on road improvement projects, about $165,000 of which would be set aside to build a new bridge on Sadler Ford Road.

Magistrate Marty Chandler said rather than build a low water ford at $37,000 less, the county should spend the money for a span bridge.

“Now this isn’t a span bridge in the traditional sense of the word,” Henderson said. “There will be some times when water would be over it.”

Henderson said if it was the court’s consensus for a span bridge, magistrates would have about $375,000 to divvy out for paving projects in their districts.

Henderson said he would leave it up to the magistrates to decide how the money should be spent, with a final vote taken at a later meeting.

Magistrates had a lengthy discussion about the need to give local car dealers another opportunity to negotiate prices for a new police cruiser.

Sheriff Gene Starks said the first time he approached local dealers no one could provide a 2009 vehicle at the state contract price of about $20,000. So fiscal court asked Starks to try again before putting the item up for bid.

“Many times we could have bought something cheaper if we had just been able to negotiate rather than take bids,” Henderson said, qualifying his statement to say the state has bidding requirements to prevent corruption.

Thistles and dead animals were also discussed at Tuesday’s meeting.

Henderson said the county has had several complaints about thistles overtaking properties, but fiscal court really isn’t the proper venue for the complaints.

The county by ordinance established a thistle board, appointed by the state agriculture commissioner, but the board has been inactive for several years. That board was charged with handling complaints.

County attorney Sam Phillips suggested that the court call the commissioner’s office and recommend new members.

“Unfortunately by the time that ball would get rolling, it would be too late for this season,” Henderson said.

Existing programs will pay for spraying pesticide on up to 10 acres of property, he said.

Magistrate Larry Randolph brought up the subject of dead animal removal, the cost of which is going up to $1,200 a month.

“I think that’s about double what it was to begin with,” Randolph said.

The county’s conservation district had about a $9,000 grant to contribute toward the removal of dead animals and Randolph questioned where the remainder would come from.

“Is this worth continuing?” he said.

Henderson said it really would be for the conservation board to decide.

“That’s not something that really impacts me,” he said.

But Chandler said Henderson and others would be impacted if the remains of dead animals ended up in the water supply.

He wondered if farmers could be asked to pay part of the removal costs again, which years ago were about $25 an animal.

Randolph said the cost has greatly increased because of FDA regulations that require the brain matter and spinal column of animals older than 3 years old be separated from the rest of the cow if it is used in animal feed.

Henderson said Griffin Industries is apparently going to use dead animals in the rendering only of fertilizer products rather than animal feed.

“That is taken into account in this cost,” he said. “If they can’t get approval for that, then the cost would be quadruple that.”

Henderson, using the analogy of smashing a mosquito with a sledge hammer, said the regulations are a “typical government response” to the small risk of mad cow disease re-entering the food chain.

In other matters, Henderson told magistrates he is in early discussions with a company that is interested in providing broadband Internet service to the county, which currently it doesn’t have.

Henderson said federal stimulus money will be available for communities to deploy broadband, but those applications won’t be available for another month or so, with funding announced in December.

“This company has enough interest to begin working on that even before, but we would have to come to the table with something,” he said.

Henderson stressed that fiscal court didn’t want to be the provider of such service, but rather a “conduit” to make sure that it is provided for the county.

The city is working on a separate matter that would provide a fiber optic loop for data services to business and industry.