A proposed sum of $750,000 will be spent towards maintaining or reconstructing DeKalb streets this summer, Mayor Greg Sparrow said.

The City Council will vote on how to use the money at a special meeting Monday in the Conference Room of the Municipal Building at 7 p.m., Sparrow said.

The money proposal, part of a five-year road maintenance program proposed by the department of public works, was designed to be used for road maintenance on 50 percent of the city’s asphalt roads and 50 percent of the city’s cement roads. The asphalt roads compose 87 percent of the city’s streets, and the cement roads compose 10.5 percent of the city’s streets.

However, when the council discussed the program at the regular council meeting on April 11, they could not agree on the funding split.

Second Ward Alderman Michael Welsh proposed at the April 11 council meeting that the funding be split 65 percent for asphalt roads and 35 percent for cement roads. The council voted against the proposal.

Some members of the council also thought the funds should be spent on roads needing reconstruction instead of roads needing maintenance, Sparrow said. “I don’t think that (the reconstruction proposal) is the best strategy (for the use of funds),” he said.

The council will talk about a new policy for the allocations of street funding at Monday’s meeting, Sparrow said. “Given the proper knowledge, the council should be able to come to a reasonable consensus on what (the new policy) should be,” he said.

In opposition to council opinion, Sparrow said it would be smarter to spend money to maintain 10 or 12 streets in good condition so they will last another 12 to 15 years than it would be to spend the same amount of money to completely reconstruct two or three blocks of a deteriorated road.

The council probably did not understand the program proposal at the last meeting, Sparrow said.

He said the council thought the program would be using all the city money allocated for street construction on street maintenance, which would leave no money in the budget for street reconstruction.

Sparrow said the program would not take away any money from reconstruction because reconstruction funds come from Capital Improvement.

The city needs to put more money into Capital Improvement funds, but “we (the city) don’t have much money floating around out there,” Sparrow said.

“We (the city) must maintain our streets as best we can to stretch our dollars as much as we can,” he said.