Press Releases and Newsletters
Nobody’s happy in road fund fight (News and Observer)
Nobody’s happy in road fund fight (News and Observer)
Published Wed, Apr 07, 2010 05:38 AM
Modified Fri, Apr 09, 2010 05:55 PM
Raleigh –Speakers from across North Carolina found little to like Tuesday in the “equity formula” used to distribute most state road-building money, but small-town advocates fretted that any change would make things worse for rural areas.
“There are a lot more losers than there are winners, but it isn’t because of the equity formula,” said Craig Hughes of the High Country Rural Planning Organization, which serves mountain counties in the state’s northeast corner. “We all need more funding.”
A House-Senate transportation oversight committee heard ideas from 16 civic and political leaders about possible changes to the formula. The committee was asked to consider improvements but is not expected to recommend big changes in the General Assembly this year.
The formula was adopted in 1989 as part of a compromise funding plan to pave rural dirt roads, surround big cities with freeway loops and link nearly every town in a web of four-lane highways.
Areas with more residents get more dollars, but big-city speakers complained that the formula ignores urban commuting patterns, air pollution and traffic jams.
“The funding definitions were created 20 years ago, when our population looked dramatically different,” Durham Mayor Bill Bell said.
Stephen Jackson of the left-leaning N.C. Budget and Tax Center said the state should funnel more money to reducing urban congestion.
“We need to put the money where the traffic is,” Jackson said. He also called for local governments to take over the burden of secondary roads. To pay for that, he said, local governments could be empowered to levy fuel and income taxes.
Joseph Coletti of the right-leaning John Locke Foundation warned that fuel taxes are higher in North Carolina than in neighboring states. But he floated the idea of boosting diesel fuel taxes for commercial vehicles.
Rural leaders sought to protect pet projects to improve local highways. But Leigh Woodall of Roxboro said Wake County has hogged Triangle funds, thwarting plans to widen U.S. 501 in Person County.
“Because of the equity formula, not a single dollar has been spent in Person County for a highway construction project since 1987,” Woodall said.
Durwood Stephenson, a Smithfield developer, doubted that legislators could find a better way to divide scarce funds.
“The equity formula is equally unfair to us all,” Stephenson said.
[email protected] or 919-829-4527
N.C. lawmakers hear from public on road formula (AP)
N.C. lawmakers hear from public on road formula (AP)
Published Tue, Apr 13, 2010 04:05 AM
Modified Tue, Apr 13, 2010 07:34 AM
RALEIGH, N.C. Elected officials and transportation boosters are getting their say before North Carolina lawmakers over whether they should change the state’s often-maligned formula for road-building dollars.
The Legislature’s transportation oversight committee scheduled for Tuesday a public hearing on the Department of Transportation’s so-called equity formula. It’s been used for more than two decades to distribute state money in seven transportation districts.
Urban areas argue the formula takes too little account of congestion and population when handing out dollars. Other county and local transportation leaders say the formula makes it hard to build expensive projects because it siphons money from other worthy projects in the district.
Smaller, rural counties generally have benefited from the current formula.
Funding formula for roads under review by panel (Washington Daily News)
Funding formula for roads under review by panel (Washington Daily News)
By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff Writer
Advocates of change — including a coalition of urban mayors — contend the existing formula diverts too much money to sparsely populated areas. They contend the state needs to spend more of its transportation dollars in high-population areas where traffic congestion is the worst.
Others, including Beaufort County leaders and economic developers, assert that diverting desperately needed money from the state’s poorer, less-populated regions would hurt economic development in areas that need it the most.
Still others believe a complete overhaul of North Carolina’s transportation priorities and related funding is needed to address 21st-century transportation needs.
On Tuesday, a House and Senate committee that oversees transportation issues heard ideas from civic and political leaders about possible changes to a two-decades-old road construction-funding formula, known as the “Equity Formula.” That formula dictates the way road-construction dollars are spent in North Carolina. It was adopted in 1989 as part of legislation that established the Highway Trust Fund.
The 1989 Highway Trust Fund legislation divided the state into seven regions and, under the Equity Formula, a portion of road construction money is evenly divided among these seven regions, regardless of population. The formula does not apply to public-transportation investments, the urban-loop program or routine maintenance.
A co-chairman of the study committee said in an earlier interview with the Daily News that he doesn’t expect the committee to make recommendations on the proposed changes this year.
“This will be a very measured approach because we understand the long-term implications for every county in the state,” said Sen. Steve Goss, D-Watauga, co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee. “We’ve got to protect the rural and small-town areas of the state.”
Goss said that any bill proposed by the committee likely will not be presented during the upcoming General Assembly’s short session, but it will instead be tackled during the long session in 2011.
Beaufort County leaders are wary of any changes in the Equity Formula and existing funding system.
In March, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution, presented by Commissioner Robert Cayton, opposing efforts to revise the Equity Formula.
“We must oppose the reformulation or we are going to be back to dirt roads,” Cayton said at the time.
Beaufort County’s representatives to the N.C. General Assembly agree.
“It would be horrible,” said Rep. Arthur Williams, D-Beaufort, in a recent interview. He pledged to “stand in the way” of any changes to the existing formula. Williams is an advisory member of the subcommittee that is considering the change and vice chairman of the House Transportation Committee that could receive any legislation recommended by the study commission.
Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who represents Beaufort County in the state Senate, also supports the current Equity Formula.
“Sen. Basnight believes the Equity Formula is serving our state well, “ said Shorr Johnson, a spokesman for Basnight, in a recent interview. “While a study of the equity formula is appropriate, without it rural North Carolina would not be getting it fair share of funds for road construction, replacing aging bridges and growing the economy.”
High Point Mayor Becky Smothers said the intent of changes in the Equity Formula proposed by urban mayors is not to penalize the state’s rural areas but to speed up much-needed road construction across the state.
“I think the major evidence that there does need to be reform is that there are projects on the books that need to be completed that haven’t even begun,” she said in a recent interview. “Nobody’s trying to punish anyone.”
Smothers oversees transportation issues for the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Association. That group is advocating not only for a change in the Equity Formula but also for other changes — such as a reworking of N.C. Department of Transportation districts to more accurately reflect transportation patterns.
Each funding region under the Equity Formula is made up of two of the long-standing state highway divisions that were intended to match DOT’s maintenance operations to the Department of Correction’s administrative system that existed 50 years ago. In today’s North Carolina, such regional boundaries have little to do with commuting patterns, air-quality planning or modern patterns of commerce, Smothers said.
As an example, she pointed to Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnson counties — five counties that have closely linked transportation patterns but are found in four different funding regions.
Another advocate of change said the solution lies in giving local governments more responsibility for transportation needs, relieving some of the state government’s burdens.
“We can start now with counties adopting responsibility for construction and improvement of secondary roads,” said Stephen Jackson of the N.C. Justice Center’s Budget and Tax Center.
Jackson was one of those who testified before the legislative study committee Tuesday. He said that North Carolina should give counties and municipalities new revenue powers, which could include a local gas tax, vehicle utility fees or transportation impact fees.
Meanwhile, one eastern North Carolina transportation advocate said the answer to the state’s transportation woes isn’t to pit one region of the state against another in a fight for scarce funding dollars but to find a long-term solution to paying for the increasing costs of new roads.
“There is a dwindling pot of money anyway. Without the Equity Formula, the rural western and eastern parts of the state will fall further behind,” said Marc Finlayson with the Highway 17 Association. “Ultimately, we need to find long-term funding and stop trying to rob one region to pay for the road for another region.”
Alternate Ways to Fund U.S. Transportation System (RAND Corporation)
Alternate Ways to Fund U.S. Transportation System (RAND Corporation)
Congress should take the opportunity provided by the pending reauthorization of the federal transportation bill to consider new ways to fund the U.S. transportation system, shifting from indirect fees such as fuel taxes to ones that charge drivers directly for the miles they travel, according to a report by RAND Corporation researchers.
The report, which focused on the strengths and limitations of alternate mechanisms for adopting mileage-based road use fees, was requested by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and prepared for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program of the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council.
“Failure to raise fuel taxes in recent years to keep pace with inflation and improved fuel economy has created significant transportation funding shortfalls at the federal and state levels,” said Paul Sorensen, lead author of the report and an operations researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.
“The prospect of more fuel-efficient conventional vehicles and alternative-fuel vehicles in the coming decades—though clearly beneficial in terms of the environment and energy security—threatens to make funding challenges worse,” Sorensen said. “Shifting from fuel taxes to mileage-based road use fees would help to overcome this problem, and there are several promising options for implementing such a shift.”
Currently, the United States charges various direct and indirect user fees such as fuel taxes, road tolls, vehicle registration fees and truck weight fees to build new roads, repair existing roads and make other necessary improvements. The idea is to charge more to those who benefit from the transportation system and those who also impose costs on the system by using it.
But the federal gasoline tax has not increased since 1993 and as vehicles become increasingly fuel-efficient, the amount of money needed to maintain the transportation system has fallen woefully short. Since 1980, the total number of vehicle miles traveled in the United States has doubled, but fuel consumption has only increased by 50 percent. Many state and federal officials now are looking to a more comprehensive system of direct user fees to replace the current revenue system.
One option being considered is to use technology to charge drivers on the basis of vehicle miles of travel (VMT). Oregon already has completed a VMT-fee system pilot project and the University of Iowa is managing ongoing trials in 12 cities across the United States.
While the principal goal of such a system would be to preserve or raise revenue, there are other potential advantages. Agencies could charge a higher per-mile rate for driving on crowded roads during peak hours, helping to reduce congestion by encouraging travelers to shift some of their trips to less congested roads or times of travel. Agencies also could charge different rates for different types of vehicles; for example, low-emissions vehicles could pay less per mile than highly polluting vehicles.
Most VMT-fee proposals envision the use of sophisticated in-vehicle metering equipment, which might be phased in as consumers buy new vehicles. Sorensen said most of the options he and his colleagues considered face one or more significant drawbacks or uncertainties that would argue against immediate implementation for all vehicles on a national scale. However, with some additional research and planning efforts, some options could be put into place starting in 2015 to help meet the nation’s urgent transportation funding needs.
RAND researchers found three options offered the most promise: estimating mileage based on fuel consumption; metering mileage based on a device that combines cellular service and a connection to an on-board diagnostics port; and metering mileage based on a device featuring a global positioning system receiver. Systems that rely on self-reported odometer readings or annual odometer inspections were found to be unreliable and too difficult or expensive to administer and enforce.
The report suggests that real-world trials of these options could be funded now, to determine which system ultimately will have the best combination of accuracy, cost-effectiveness and ease of implementation.
Martin Wachs, director of the Transportation, Space, and Technology Program at RAND, said another major concern for policymakers will be privacy issues.
“Even though people’s movements can now be tracked to some extent through their cellular phone records, law enforcement officials often need a court order to access that data,” Wachs said. “Consumers will be understandably concerned about on-board devices tracking their vehicle’s position and movement, and will want safeguards as to what kinds of data are recorded and who has access to that information.”
Liisa Ecola, another co-author of the RAND report, said that there is no guarantee that instituting fees based on vehicle miles traveled or subsequent efforts to increase VMT fees to keep pace with inflation will be any less controversial than increasing fuel taxes. Also, the collection of VMT fees will likely be more costly and more burdensome than the collection of fuel taxes.
“However, it’s clear that the present system isn’t working and fees based on vehicle miles traveled, if properly implemented, could result not only in more money to support the nation’s transportation system, but also spread the cost burden in a more fair and equitable way,” Ecola said.
The report, “Implementable Strategies for Shifting to Direct Usage-Based Charges for Transportation Funding,” can be found at www.rand.org.
Other authors of the study are Max Donath and Lee Munnich of the University of Minnesota and Betty Serian of Betty Serian Associates. The report was prepared for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program of the Transportation Research Board, under subcontract with ICF International.
The research was conducted by RAND’s Transportation, Space & Technology Program, a part of the RAND Infrastructure, Safety and Environment division. The division’s mission is to improve development, operation, use and protection of society’s essential built and natural assets; and to enhance the related social assets of safety and security of individuals in transit and in their workplaces and communities.
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The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.
Wednesday
February 10, 2010
Indiana Plans New Tolls, Tax (Bond Buyer)
Indiana Plans New Tolls, Tax (Bond Buyer)
$10B of Projects for Indianapolis Area
CHICAGO — A central Indiana task force yesterday unveiled a nearly $10 billion regional transportation plan that recommends imposing a local sales tax and building express toll lanes to help keep Indianapolis competitive in the Midwest.
The group proposes creating a bond-issuing authority to oversee the regional transportation system and entering into public-private partnerships whenever possible to help to mitigate costs.
The task force, a private-sector collaboration of the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, and the Central Indiana Community Foundation, has spent the last year studying the region’s system.
It unveiled its recommendations yesterday in downtown Indianapolis and said it plans to spend 2010 holding public meetings to refine the plan and setting up a body to govern the new system. In 2011 the group hopes to begin lobbying state lawmakers to put a sales tax proposal on the ballot.
“This will be the year for a discussion,” Mayor Greg Ballard said at the press conference where the plan was released. “This is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposal.”
The plan would tap into the current $8.9 billion, 25-year roadway expansion plan, deferring about $600 million of previously planned local road projects and shifting that money to other transportation infrastructure projects.
Additional costs would be covered by imposing a local sales tax of 0.35% to 0.50% on top of the state’s current 7% tax.
“For over 60 years, our transportation strategy has focused almost entirely on building more and better highways, a strategy that produced both notable benefits and shortcomings,” the group noted in a report outlining its proposal. “Continuing our current transportation strategy will not adequately meet our needs in an increasingly competitive world.”
Building express toll lanes on state highways running through Indianapolis would cost $21 million and $13.2 million annually to operate — but would bring in more than $29 million annually, generating a surplus that could be used for other projects, the group estimated. Drivers could opt to pay a toll to use the express lanes, which would have the added benefit of easing congestion.
An expanded bus and rail system would cost $2.4 billion to build, plus $107 million to operate annually. Riders would pay for about 20% of annual operating costs, and $56 million would come from the existing IndyGo bus system. New revenue from the local sales tax would generate the rest, the group said. The rail system would feature new light-rail and passenger trains along existing freight rails.
The new system would create 4,500 new jobs and more than $27 billion in economic development, as well as a 4% increase in property values for buildings located near rail service in Marion County, the task force said.
The state funds its transportation costs with local, federal, and state sources, but the group focused on local funding, which currently pays for 60% of capital costs and more than 90% of operating costs.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
By Caitlin Devitt
US Senate lawmakers unveil long-awaited jobs bill (Reuters)
US Senate lawmakers unveil long-awaited jobs bill (Reuters)
Thu, Feb 11 2010
* Rare bipartisan support, but scope limited
* Action delayed by snowstorm, partisanship
* Business tax breaks, construction funds (New throughout with Obama, Reid)
By Andy Sullivan and Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. senators unveiled a limited jobs-creation bill on Thursday that relies on business tax breaks and construction projects to bring down a stubbornly high unemployment rate.
With a nervous eye on the November congressional elections, President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill have floated a wide range of job-creating proposals to help the economy recover from the deepest recession in 70 years.
But with their agenda frozen by partisan gridlock and a record-setting snowstorm, Senate Democrats opted for a relatively narrow $15 billion effort that they hope will win quick passage — rather than a more costly measure that could get stalled.
“We feel that the American people need a message. The message that they need is that we’re doing something about jobs,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a tough campaign for re-election back home in Nevada, said after a meeting with fellow Democrats.
With no votes scheduled for Thursday and a weeklong recess looming, Senate floor action on the bill was put off until the week of Feb. 22.
Their supermajority gone after a surprise Republican victory in last month’s Massachusetts Senate race, Democrats now need at least one Republican vote to pass legislation.
TWO FROM THE GOP
The bill incorporate provisions crafted with the help of two Republicans on the tax-writing Finance Committee, Charles Grassley and Orrin Hatch.
The bill would also include tax credits to encourage businesses to buy new equipment, subsidies for state and local construction bonds, and money to shore up a highway-construction fund.
The bill’s $15 billion cost will be offset by closing unspecified tax loopholes, a Democratic aide said.
The Senate later will take up other proposals such as a tax break for research and development, Reid said.
“We don’t have a jobs bill, we have a jobs agenda. And we’re going to move forward on that jobs agenda,” Reid said.
Though Democrats want to show struggling voters that they are helping boost the economy, they also face a growing voter backlash for the hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit spending they approved last year to blunt the recession’s impact.
Thus the series of smaller bills could avoid the sticker shock that accompanied last year’s $787 billion stimulus package, as well as the $155 billion jobs package passed by the more liberal House of Representatives in December that emphasizes construction spending and direct aid to states.
Despite its relatively narrow scope, the bill could face resistance from both the left and the right.
Republican Senator Judd Gregg has said the construction money is wasteful and its actual $19.5 billion cost is hidden by accounting gimmicks. His staff released a memo on Wednesday suggesting that he could use budget rules to defeat the bill.
Meanwhile, many liberals question the effectiveness of Hatch’s tax credit for businesses that hire people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days.
That approach would cost between $56,000 and $125,000 in lost tax revenue for every full-time job created, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
(Editing by Philip Barbara and Jackie Frank)
Jobs Bill Likely to Be Delayed in Senate (Wall Street Journal)
Jobs Bill Likely to Be Delayed in Senate (Wall Street Journal)
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday balked at Democratic efforts to push an economic stimulus measure through the chamber by the end of the week, making it likely that the Senate will wait at least until the week of Feb. 22 to vote on the roughly $80 billion package.
“It’s a cake that isn’t quite baked yet,” said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.), following a Senate nominations vote.
“Not enough of our members have had an opportunity to review it, for a consensus that would permit us to move forward on it that quickly,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), had announced earlier Tuesday that despite another snowstorm rolling through the Washington region, he hoped to bring the jobs-creation bill for a vote by the end of the week.
Both the Senate and the House are in recess the week of Feb. 15 due to the Presidents’ Day holiday.
Democratic leaders were still weighing procedural options late Tuesday. But with 15 senators absent from Tuesday’s vote because the weekend snowstorm impeded their travel, it didn’t appear that Democrats had the numbers to limit debate and push the bill to a vote without Republicans on their side.
Several Republicans are expected to ultimately support the measure, but senators indicated Tuesday they simply wanted more time.
“I don’t think that’s intellectually honest, and I think people back home would say to you that to respond to it that quickly is not good public policy,” said Sen. George Voinovich (R., Ohio).
A second storm is on its way up the Eastern Seaboard after a blizzard of historic proportions dumped up to two feet of snow on Washington over the weekend. The latest predictions are for another 10 to 20 inches of snow.
If the Senate is closed Wednesday, that would leave only two days for lawmakers to complete work on the jobs package. Given the partisan rancor that has left the Senate gridlocked, that is a very short amount of time for the Democratic majority to push through a major piece of legislation.
Mr. Reid said Tuesday the job-creation measure will include a one-year extension of the highway trust fund, a tax credit for employers that hire new workers, a separate tax break for small-business owners and an expansion of “Build America Bonds” that provide tax-friendly vehicles for state and local governments to raise funds for infrastructure investments.
The Senate bill is likely to expand the tax-credit bond program, which was created by last year’s economic stimulus legislation, so that municipalities could use them for school construction and clean-energy projects, according to a draft version of the bill that was circulating Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said that members of his party hadn’t seen the Democratic proposal, and that he wanted a chance to discuss it with them.
The bill is also expected to include a one-year extension of expired tax breaks for businesses, including the research tax credit, tax breaks for the film industry and the active financing exception for firms’ overseas profits, according to the draft.
Senators are also folding in provisions to partly offset the bill’s cost. Those include closing a loophole that could allow pulp and paper firms to claim a tax credit for cellulosic ethanol, anti-tax-evasion measures targeting offshore accounts, and a measure to allow some firms to delay payments to defined-benefit pension plans.
The Senate bill could also include a short-term patch to Medicare’s physician payment formula, which must be adjusted in order to avoid steep decreases in Medicare reimbursements to doctors. If the formula remains unchanged, the payment rate would drop by roughly 21% in March.
The length of time of that extension was one of the final details under discussion Tuesday, said people close to negotiations.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) Tuesday said the House won’t hold any votes this week or next, and would return on Feb. 22.
By MARTIN VAUGHAN, PATRICK YOEST And COREY BOLES
Write to Martin Vaughan at [email protected], Patrick Yoest at [email protected] and Corey Boles at [email protected]
Senate Set to Extend SAFETEA-LU (Journal of Commerce)
Senate Set to Extend SAFETEA-LU (Journal of Commerce)
Second bill to transfer $20 billion to Highway Trust Fund
Senators are expected within the next two weeks to introduce legislation to sustain surface transportation spending, John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highways and Transportation Officials, said Tuesday.
Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told industry representatives that they will offer two measures, Horsley said. One will extend the existing transportation program known as SAFETEA-LU through the end of calendar 2010. The second will transfer $20 billion from general revenue to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent.
Horsley said the two measures will likely appear as part of a larger tax package that the Senate will consider. The Senate is also working on a jobs program “in which transportation investment is expected to be a major component.”
Horsley said he didn’t know how much of the jobs package would go to surface transportation, but he hoped that it would be close to the $27.5 billion for highway and $8.4 billion for transit that the House approved in December.
AASHTO released a report on the first anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Horsley said that $23.8 billion of the $26 billion for highway projects had been obligated by states for construction projects. States also obligated $7.2 billion of the $8.4 billion that the recovery act dedicated to transit. All told, states launched 11,000 projects employing 280,000 people. Thirty percent of the projects came in under engineers’ estimates.
“We’re delivering value,” Horsley said. “Thousands of projects have been delivered. The states’ success in delivering on the Recovery Act highway and transit dollars is quite remarkable.”
Contact R.G. Edmonson at [email protected].
R.G. Edmonson | Feb 9, 2010 10:57PM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online – News Story
NCBOT Meeting 2/3/2010
Jim Humphrey with the City of Charlotte attended the February NC Board of Transportation Meeting and summarized the higlights below:
Certain portions of the meeting were spent educating new members. Highlights include:
NCDOT Project Delivery Process and Interagency Leadership Team- Debbie Barbour (NCDOT) and John Sullivan (FHWA) presented info to Planning and Environment Committee. The project delivery process included the merger process which has improved project delivery timelines by lessening the chance of serious disagreements with permitting agencies late in the process. The Interagency Leadership Team includes high level staff of NCDOT and partner agencies. It’s goals include 1-Develop shared GIS, 2-Partner to integrate local land use plans, long range transportation plans, environmental and ED planning to meet mobility, environment and economic goals and, 3-Improve the project delivery process. A trial GIS project is underway which is expected to demonstrate benefits.
Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation (PART)- Brent McKinney (PART) gave a presentation of services and needs of his agency. He did an excellent job explaining the business/economic case for transit services which was well received by the Multimodal Committee. During discussion, some members of the committee stated an earlier commitment made during consideration of the State Transportation Plan to increase transit funding from 1.8% of the state transportation budget to 12% and that this had not happened.
I-440 Fencing- Kevin Lacy and Cliff Brown (NCDOT) discussed analysis and corrective action that took place after a good Samaritan jumped over a bridge fence to his death. The presentation was to the Safety and Emerging Issues Committee.
Randolph County Rest Area and Visitor’s Center- A presentation was made highlighting the safety benefits of rest areas, “green features” of this particular center and the public/private finance/operation of the visitor’s center.
Reform Efforts Related to BOT- Jim Trogden (NCDOT) presented info regarding concurrent efforts within NCDOT to reform the role and operation of the Board of Transportation, These include what he called the three “P’s”-Policy, Planning and Performance. Policy initiatives included ethics, finance and mobility, audit, land use and environment, intergovernmental and professional development. Planning included revision of the 25 year plan, development of the 5 and 10 year transportation plans, innovation and performance of the statewide system of transportation. Performance included monitoring of financial status and more work by the board in making policy decisions to improve project delivery as opposed to making project decisions. Jim indicated that staff and the board are looking at other ways to improve interaction such as changing meeting frequency, establishing more or different board work groups and having occasional meeting outside Raleigh.
Ethics- Fleming Bell (UNC School of Government) presented info on “Ethics Laws that Every Government Officer, Employee and Contractor Should Know”.
Financial Overview- Mark Foster (NCDOT) gave a “Finance 101” presentation indicating where DOT revenues come from and how they are spent. He indicated they do not expect revenues to return to the 2007 level (a peak year) until 2014 or later.
