VIDALIA, La. &8212; With its road improvement-dedicated tax increase safely, if slimly, passed, the Concordia Parish Police Jury gets down to the nitty gritty of its 82-road project in its meeting tonight.

&8220;We&8217;ve got to get our bond sales ready to go,&8221; Jury president Melvin Ferrington said. &8220;And we&8217;ve got to get our engineers beginning to do a road study so we can be ready to start construction the first of April, if the weather breaks by that time.&8221;

Bond attorney Alan Offner of the New Orleans firm Foley and Judell will handle the sale of the bonds for the county.

Offner said the county would probably issue two series of bonds, one for work to be done in 2006 and another for 2007. The size of each series will be determined in part by how much work can be done in 2006, an issue county engineer Bryant Hammett and his firm, Hammett and Associates will be asked to study.

The timetable of the bond issuance is also for the jury to decide.

Offner said if the bonds were sold in January, they would be delivered in March, meaning money would be available by the beginning of construction season.

The new 1.5 percent sales tax increase goes into effect at the first of the year. The parish will see its first revenue in the beginning of February 2006.

The $950,000 estimated revenue from the tax increase was derived from the one percent garbage tax the county collects and could fluctuate according to economic conditions.

Ferrington said the parish&8217;s estimates are conservative, and for a good reason.

&8220;When we tell the people we&8217;re going to do 82 roads, we&8217;re going to do 82 roads&8230; We anticipate having a little money left over in 5, 6, 7 years, based on the economy. Then we can come back and do another priority road project. Maybe not this amount, but a decent amount.&8221;

The term of the bonds is expected to be 20 years. The tax raise will not retire at that time, Ferrington said, because &8220;by then it&8217;ll be time to do it all over again.&8221;

Bids for the construction contract will be accepted toward the end of the year or early in 2006, Ferrington said.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the police jury room at the Concordia Parish Courthouse.