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HANNIBAL, MO. -- The city of Hannibal has extra money in the bank, thanks to yet another road project coming in under budget.

Last week, the city received a low bid of $314,220 dollars from Chester Bross Construction to repave a set of streets - that's less than the city expected to spend. The money saved will let Hannibal cross off even more projects on its list.

"With the bids coming in the way they are, it makes it a little easier to handle the change orders that will come along, the unexpected expenses," City Engineer Mark Rees said.

The low cost of the repaving projects combined with the money saved from the Stardust extension project will save Hannibal close to half a million dollars. When debt has paved over so many city governments, how is Hannibal doing so well?

"It might be as much to do with the economy and the work load of the contractors as anything else, I really don't know. I tried to design our projects to make them easy to build," Rees said.

Rees also credits his staff who inspect each project while working with the contractors to avoid delays and other problems. The extra money can now go toward repairs for even more streets which has become the city's main focus.

"To some extent, our capital project is winding down. We'll do more of what we've heard MODOT is doing, maintain what we have," Rees said.

Rees said that type of maintenance will still look like upgrades when you look at the condition of many of Hannibal's roads.

When the city's maintenance bonds retire in the next 6 to 8 years, Hannibal will have doubled the amount of money it has for other maintenance projects. Rees said he'd like to see improvements to curbs and gutters and additional drainage.