Greenville County Councilman Tony Trout said he's alerted the FBI's new public corruption task force to what he considers manipulation of the county's road paving program to get favored areas resurfaced while leaving his Greer-area district in the lurch.

Countywide, Trout said it could be costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

County Administrator Joe Kernell and paving contractor Mark Ashmore said the allegations are unfounded and that they would welcome scrutiny.

At issue is a key concern for many Greer-area voters and the impetus for Trout's inaugural council campaign two years ago -- the condition of local roads, on which the county spends $11.6 million a year. About $6 million of that is for actual paving, Kernell said.

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Trout said he was among the County Council members last year who approved a new ranking system to repave local roads on a worst-to-first basis regardless of council district. Under the new system, Trout said only one road in his district is on the list this year.

"I am writing you because the 'good ol' boy' system is alive and well here in Greenville County," Trout said in a letter addressed to FBI agent Brian Lamkin and provided to The Greenville News.

FBI spokesman Tom O'Neill declined to comment.

In the copy Trout provided, he described the county's road paving program as "the most guarded top secret program that I have ever seen." He told the newspaper that county staffers manipulate the county road ratings to get certain roads paved and the lengths of some roads so that the contractor is paid for more work than is completed.

Some roads paved recently have no one living on them, Trout said, while others on the list have been waiting for years.

His own road, which was paved just before he was elected, was listed in county documents at about 2,500 feet long, Trout said. But Trout said he measured it at 1,400 feet, leading him to believe the contractor was overpaid.

"It's either illegal or its totally incompetent," he said.

Ashmore, president of the paving company that manages the county program, said Trout's road was listed at about 2,400 feet and budgeted at a cost of $70,000, but that contractors discovered it was much shorter and were paid only for the work that was done.

Kernell said contractors are paid according to the amount of material they use and not road lengths.

Trout said, "Show me. Show me some invoices."

The county administrator said the road paving program "is actually the one program that's been scrutinized and talked about and reviewed the most" by council, staff members, the legal system and independent experts.

Kernell said some roads need to be paved based on usage regardless of how many residents live on them.

"I don't know if any residents live on Interstate 85, but it needs to be paved," he said.

Trout also said two lists of roads contain differing ratings, leading him to question whether someone is manipulating the numbers to justify the paving of certain roads.

Kernell said county staffers revise the ratings provided by an outside consultant for planning purposes. Sometimes there are mistakes and sometimes roads have different quality ratings for different sections, Kernell said.

Kernell said some roads on the priority list in previous years have yet to be paved because of drainage problems and other issues involving separate agencies that can delay a paving project. He said it wouldn't make sense to pave a road only to tear some of it up again.

Those roads are held, then paved when the issues are resolved, he said.

Trout also contends that the Ashmore Brothers paving company has a chokehold on the program contract in part because the Ashmore family includes former county councilman Richard Ashmore.

Mark Ashmore, president of the company, denied the claim and said he welcomes scrutiny from the FBI and anyone else.

"I thought about sending a letter to the FBI about Tony Trout being a bully; then they'd have two worthless letters," Ashmore said.

Ashmore, whose company has managed the paving program for three years, said he considered not bidding for the contract this year because budgets are so tight and denied claims that roads are paved to benefit insiders. He said he's unsure why his was the only company bidding for the management contract this year.

Ashmore said he lives in Trout's district.

"His road's redone and mine's 20 years old and hasn't been touched," Ashmore said. "It's real frustrating when you've got a guy who keeps shooting bullets at you and he won't take just a little bit of time to educate himself."

Trout said he isn't criticizing the Ashmore family, some of whom he described as "godly" people who attend his church, but wants county staffers to explain why the numbers don't add up.

Ashmore said the paving program is "probably the most scrutinized program around, and it gives more options than any other program so you can actually save money."

Kernell said the county's design-build approach to the paving program saves money when fuel costs skyrocket, for example, because the contractor must do the work for a guaranteed price.

Council Chairman Butch Kirven said there are few large companies capable of managing the county's entire paving program each year.

"That's not the ideal situation, but the benefits I think offset the criticism there," Kirven said.

Kernell said the design-build approach has been challenged numerous times in court, and that the county has prevailed every time.

Trout criticized the legal fees it took to defend those court cases, and said what he's talking about hasn't been challenged legally.

Kirven said the only other paving options would be to do the paving with county resources or hire individual contractors for smaller segments. The former would be too costly and the latter would be too inefficient, he said.

Kirven said if Trout has concerns, he would support looking into them in a public, open forum.

Trout said, "I have begged him. I have brought it up to do an audit."

Kernell said, "The only reason I can imagine that he (Trout) would say that this is the most secretive program is because he hasn't taken the time to sit down and learn the program."

Trout said, "I am probably more in tune with how the road pavement works than any other council member."

He said he's tried to ask a county staff member about the program, but that her boss and Kernell showed up to the meeting and insisted on answering his questions.

"They look at you like, 'Oh you don't understand,' " Trout said.

Neither Trout nor Kernell said they had heard from the FBI as of late Thursday.