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Federal Lands funding, Risk Management,
TECM bonding, GARVEE update highlight
October board meeting

Federal Lands funding, managing risks to ITD, TECM bonding options, and a GARVEE update were all discussed during the Idaho Transportation Board meeting October 17 in Boise.

Federal Lands Access Program
At its meeting at Headquarters on October 17, the board reviewed proposed projects to add to the Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP).

FLAP was established to improve the transportation infrastructure owned and maintained by a number of federal agencies with land and natural-resource-management responsibilities. Approximately $15 million is available annually for projects that provide access to, are adjacent to, or are located within federal lands, with priority given to projects accessing high-use recreation sites or federal economic generators. The list of candidate projects proposed for inclusion in the FY23-24 Idaho Transportation Investment Program was presented.

Recommended projects include the Pine-Featherville Roadway Rehabilitation in the Boise and Sawtooth National Forests for $4.6 million, the Bayhorse Bridge Replacement in the Salmon-Challis National Forest for $4.8 million, and the Dent Bridge Road Safety Improvements (Dworshak Reservoir) in the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest for $7.8 million. A few others are the Indiana and Orchard Shared Roadway and Roundabout project in the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge for $3.2 million, and a ID-55 and Banks Lowman Road Intersection Study in the Boise National Forest for $750,000.

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Annual Update
ERM is a process to identify and address threats that may interfere with the department achieving its objectives. Staff identifies strategies to mitigate the risks and monitors the effectiveness of those actions in reducing or eliminating the risk. Risks previously identified were reassessed. Currently, there are eight very high risks and one very high opportunity.

Some of the very high risks deal with procurement, recruiting and retaining key personnel and/or skills, updating technology systems, and recovering from system outages or insufficient system resources. The very high opportunity is increased funding.

Workshop
The board met informally to discuss the Transportation Expansion and Congestion Mitigation (TECM) Program and Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle (GARVEE) Program.

TECM legislation provides funding from sales and cigarette taxes to expand the state highway system and address and mitigate congestion. Legislation in 2019 authorized the board to bond against TECM funds and established a $15 million a year minimum amount. It also directed the board to consider congestion mitigation at the State of Idaho West Chinden Campus.

Bonding strategies and options were discussed. If the board decides to bond against TECM funds, some options are to only bond on projects with an expected life longer than the term of the bond, bond for the total project cost, or use bonds only for construction. Because there are projects programmed in the current TECM Program, consideration could be given to bond those TECM projects to accelerate their construction, fund a few $50 to $80 million projects, or fund a single large project up to $200 million.

The board also heard an update on active GARVEE corridors. The US-95, Granite North safety improvements should be under construction by next summer. Portions of I-84 between Nampa and Caldwell are under construction, and savings of approximately $26 million are expected. Bids are coming in lower than anticipated. The ID-16, I-84 to US-20/26 alignment is being refined and efforts are continuing on acquiring right-of-way.