JEFFERSON — The city of Jefferson will have to look a little closer to home to cover the costs of some road projects.

During City Council’s regularly scheduled work session, Jefferson Public Works Director Jeff Killip informed the group that funding through the State Aid Grant Program has been put on hold due to budget shortfalls.

News from the state wasn’t all bad Monday evening. Killip also reported to the board that the Local Assistance Road Program has been re-instated for the 2010 fiscal year after being cancelled last fiscal year due to budgetary constraints.

With state funding still being limited, the availability of LARP resources doesn’t come without restrictions.

“It used to be that a municipality could apply for funding for anything, but now we have to justify applying for funds — we basically have to provide traffic counts,” said Killip. “It has to be a pretty significant improvement to receive funding.”

The council also was made aware of staff attempts to bring all businesses current on their license fees.

“Over the past year, the city of Jefferson has attempted to collect delinquent business license fees. Letters from my office were mailed out July 16, 2008, to businesses who are delinquent from 2005 to 2008,” said Elizabeth McDonald, city clerk.

“Businesses that did not make payment were given yet another chance with the 2009 renewals that were mailed in January 2009.”

According to City Manager John Ward, the original list was made up of around 45 delinquent businesses and about half have caught up with the fees.

“We have gone above and beyond with working with those delinquent businesses,” said Ward. “Because of that, we recommend that the city move forward with citing businesses that have not paid their business license fees for 2009 and prior years.”

Jefferson Mayor Jim Joiner was absent from the meeting due to being hospitalized because of an “incident” that occurred during the weekend. According to Jefferson Mayor Pro-Tem Roy Plott, Joiner is expected to make a full recovery. Council member Randall “Bosie” Griffith was also absent from the meeting.

Although no action was taken during Monday’s meeting at the Jefferson Civic Center on Kissam Street, City Council is expected to act on agenda items during its voting session on July 27.