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Board approves capital facilities plan

The Idaho Transportation Board last week approved a revised Six-Year Capital Facilities Program that maintains and extends the useful life of ITD’s buildings. The decision came Thursday (Aug. 19) during the final business meeting of the year at a district location.

The goal of the building program is to achieve a sustainable design that maintains and extends the useful life of the department’s buildings. The program funds for alterations, repairs, and statewide preventive maintenance allow districts to modernize higher maintenance or inefficient facility components or make safety improvements. Sand sheds continue to be a priority along with wastewater disposal because of environmental regulations.

Some of the projects scheduled in FY12 include an addition to and re-roof of the Plummer maintenance facility; equipment storage sheds at Kooskia and Malad; and Island Park trailer shelters.

Other board action

Idaho Traffic Crashes 2009 and Highway Safety Performance Plan FY11
A summary of the Idaho Traffic Crashes 2009 report was provided to the board before it approved the FY11 Highway Safety Performance Plan.

The goal of the Highway Safety Program is to reduce deaths, serious injuries and economic losses resulting from traffic crashes by implementing programs to address driver behaviors. The Highway Safety Performance Plan is prepared annually to identify and address Idaho’s most critical behavior-related highway safety problems. The top focus areas of the $5.7 million program are safety restraints, impaired drivers and aggressive driving.

In 2009, there were 226 fatalities and 11,393 injuries as a result of traffic crashes in Idaho. The state’s fatality rate was 1.46 (fatalities per 100 million annual miles of travel).

Following are some notable statistics from the report:

59 percent, or 85, of all passenger vehicle fatalities were unrestrained;
29 percent of all fatalities were attributed to impaired driving, which was a reduction from 41 percent;
16 young drivers were killed, while only 5 of those were buckled up; and
34 people were killed in motorcycle crashes.

FY12 proposed budget request
The board approved the proposed FY12 budget that will be submitted to the Division of Financial Management and Legislative Services Office by Sept.1.

The total projected revenue to ITD in FY12 is $567.6 million, which is a slight increase from FY11. The request includes 1,827.5 full-time positions; a $1 million, or 1 percent, increase for personnel funding; $3.95 million to add back the FY11 two-month health insurance holiday and to reflect an increase in employer health insurance costs; and $854,900 to reflect a scheduled PERSI rate increase.

Of the $26 million request for equipment replacement, almost $13 million would be used to purchase highway equipment; $11.5 million for the Buy-Back program; about $1 million for computer equipment. The remainder would purchase items such as shop, laboratory and office equipment.

One of the six line items is for a new position in the Division of Aeronautics to do capital improvement planning for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airport improvement grants. This is a new initiative by the FAA that will help optimize the use of FAA funds and allow ITD to provide input in the FAA grant development process.

The new position, if approved, would be fully funded by the FAA.