SBX1 10 (Bates) Page 2 of 2
SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
Senator Jim Beall, Chair
2015 - 2016 First Extraordinary
Bill No: SBX1 10 Hearing Date: 9/1/2015
Author: / BatesVersion: / 7/16/2015
Urgency: / No / Fiscal: / Yes
Consultant: / Eric Thronson
SUBJECT: Regional transportation capital improvement funds
DIGEST: This bill requires the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to apportion annually to each regional transportation planning agency the amount of county share funding identified in the most recently adopted Fund Estimate.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1) Assigns to the California Transportation Commission (CTC) the responsibility of advising and assisting the administration and the Legislature in formulating and evaluating state policies and plans for California’s transportation programs. A large part of this responsibility currently includes approving various programs of transportation projects funded by state and federal funds and proposed by both the state and regional transportation planning entities.
2) Requires regional transportation planning agencies to determine a short-term list of specific transportation projects through a public input process and based on the region’s reasonably expected revenues. This project list is called the Regional Transportation Improvement Program (RTIP), which includes the highest priority transportation projects needed to implement the region’s long-term transportation and land use vision.
3) Requires Caltrans to develop a five-year Interregional Transportation Improvement Plan (ITIP) consisting of projects improving interregional movement of people, vehicles, and goods.
4) Requires, every two years, Caltrans to submit the ITIP and the regional transportation entities to submit their RTIPs to CTC for inclusion in a statewide plan called the State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP). The STIP is a five-year program of future state transportation funding allocations for state highway, intercity rail, and regional highway and transit improvements.
5) Requires, every two years, Caltrans to develop and CTC to adopt a five-year estimate of all state and federal funds that will reasonably be expected and available for projects in the STIP. This is called the STIP Fund Estimate.
6) Allocates 75% of all the funds available for the STIP to regions for projects in each RTIP, while the state maintains 25% of these funds for projects identified in the ITIP.
7) Requires, generally, CTC to allocate funds for each project during the fiscal year that the project is identified in the STIP, and makes the funding available for that project for up to three years following the CTC allocation.
8) Requires CTC to compute, based on specific definitions and parameters, the share of STIP funding the CTC should allocate to each county over the course of the five-year Fund Estimate for STIP projects.
9) Specifies that any projects on state highways funded from the state highway account be completed by Caltrans.
This bill:
1) Requires Caltrans to apportion annually to each regional transportation planning agency the amount of county share funding identified in the most recently adopted STIP Fund Estimate.
2) Requires the Legislature to include in the annual budget act an appropriation of federal and state transportation funds for Caltrans to apportion to the regional transportation planning agencies.
3) Eliminates the CTC’s responsibility of allocating funds for each project in the STIP that is included in an RTIP.
4) Eliminates the CTC’s ability to resolve any conflicts between projects in the various RTIPs.
5) Deletes most of the specific definitions and parameters upon which county shares are computed and which govern how the money can be spent.
6) Deletes any reference to county balances and adjustments to county shares of STIP funding.
7) Allows anyone to do projects on the state highway system, not just Caltrans.
COMMENTS:
1) Purpose. According to the author, this bill is intended to speed up delivery of transportation projects by transforming the STIP process into a grant program for the regions. This will allow, presumably, each region to focus maximum effort on delivering high-priority projects instead of wasting time navigating the byzantine bureaucratic process in Sacramento.
2) Reform is reasonable. Nearly everyone agrees, including the administration and Caltrans itself, that reforming how Caltrans operates and how the state plans and funds transportation projects is necessary and overdue. For example, in 2014 the California Transportation Agency released a report by an outside management consultant that described significant challenges within Caltrans and issued a call for change. In response, Caltrans released the Caltrans Improvement Project, which has one goal: to make Caltrans into a high-performance, efficient, transparent, accountable, and modern organization. In addition, the Legislature passed and the governor signed a number of bills in the last few years that were intended to encourage and facilitate reform of state transportation. This bill attempts to continue this effort to improve the state’s delivery of transportation projects.
3) Novel idea, poor execution. In essence, this bill attempts to turn the regional portion of the STIP into a block grant program in order to create flexibility and reduce bureaucracy. Practically, however, this bill tries to shoehorn this block grant concept into an existing allocation and funding system that seems to be effective as-is. This large-scale reconstruction of the existing, complex STIP process, without proper analysis of all the ramifications of the proposed changes, will lead to a variety of unintended and potentially dire consequences. For example, this bill eliminates CTC’s ability to make changes necessary to resolve conflicts between neighboring RTIPs, or to adjust county shares from year to year in order to reflect changing project costs. Limiting these CTC mechanisms could do significantly more damage to regions and the way the state delivers transportation projects than any potential gains this bill may achieve. Considering all the challenges this bill could create, it appears to be potentially very harmful legislation as written. Notwithstanding the merits of the concept to give regions their funds with fewer strings attached, the way this bill executes that concept is fatally flawed.
If the goal of this bill is to increase the amount of funding the regions control without increasing overall funding, there may be better ways to accomplish this aim. For example, the Legislature could simply adjust the statutory distribution calculation of transportation to send more to the locals and less to the STIP. This would accomplish the goal without creating the opportunity for potential unintended complications the scheme in this bill could encounter. In order to avoid the various and unknown unintended consequences of the existing proposal in this bill, the committee may wish to amend the bill to increase the amount of funding distributed by formula to the locals by the amount of the regional share of the STIP, and reduce the regional STIP funding by a similar amount.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on Thursday,
August 27, 2015.)
SUPPORT:
None received
OPPOSITION:
Sierra Club California
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