The region’s transportation planning organization has updated its policy on how it allocates federal transportation credits toward Central Texas projects.
The federal government created transportation development credits as a flexible funding tool. Credits are created as the region spends funds from toll revenues on other transportation projects, said Ashby Johnson, executive director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization at the agency’s Monday night policy board meeting.
CAMPO’s goals under the new policy include advancing regionally significant projects and prioritizing those located in disadvantaged communities that have higher percentages of minority and senior populations, according to the policy.
How they work
These credits can be used as the local funding match—typically 20 percent of the total cost—required for federally funded projects, essentially allowing projects to be fully federally funded, Johnson said. This also allows local funds to be used for other projects.
“It was [also created] to give regions that were willing to go out and finance transportation improvements an ability to recoup some of that,” he said.
The caveat, however, is that the federal government has more stringent construction standards that make the projects more expensive—such as having to use reinforced concrete instead of asphalt—and sometimes lead to rescoping a project to stay within budget, Johnson said.
“Sometimes we have to rescope the project so much that it looks like a different project that did not go out for public comment,” Johnson said.
Having jurisdictions ask for the federal credits up front when they ask for federal funding could alleviate that, he said.
Use of credits
CAMPO staff estimates the agency has about 700 million credits remaining, which drew some criticism from policy board members who felt the planning organization should essentially spend down those credits faster.
“I’m afraid it might not exist in any way in the future,” said Matt Powell, Cedar Park mayor and CAMPO policy board member. “It’s there now. Our staff has talked about what if we did a one-year pilot where it had an automatic 100 percent local match. Whatever we do we need to step up our game and start utilizing these.”
Bridget Shea, Precinct 2 Travis County commissioner and CAMPO policy board member, said she would be interested in a policy similar to one in Dallas that automatically allocates credits as the local match for every federally funded project.
“I heard one estimate that it would take us 40 years to spend [the 700 million credits] down,” she said. “I don’t know why we’re being so miserly with these.”
