September is here and that means budget season!
Every September state agency budgets are due to the Governor so he or she can prepare their budget, which is released in December.
The Governor’s budget is then considered by the Legislature where they could take or leave his or her recommendations.
In a typical year, the County Road Administration Board submits a maintenance level budget, with perhaps a few requests for new dollars for things like increased costs for software licenses, a new employee position, etc. It is exceedingly rare for us to pursue big asks – things like large increases to our grant programs, or a new program.
This year is not a typical year.
Two and half years ago, our staff and the board adopted a strategic plan and clarified our mission: to ensure the success and accountability of all Washington county road departments.
A glaring area in need of support on the county road system is local access roads – there are currently NO programs that exist to fund these critical roadways.
To quantify the challenge with some data:
- At 48,875 lane miles, the county local road system is 31% larger than the city road system and nearly 161% larger than the state’s entire road system
- 21,422 of those miles are within overburdened communities
- 9,220 of those miles provide access to national forests, DNR lands, state and county parks
- 1,633 of those miles are within, or provide direct access to, tribal land
- 2,151 of those miles provide access to schools, fire/EMS stations, and other government facilities
The local road system in a county represents approximately 62% of the county road system in Washington state and over a THIRD of the total lane miles of all state, city, and county roads.
As Washington state has grown, the county local road system has seen higher and higher demand by the traveling public. It places increasing stress on county road budgets to maintain these local roads, much less adding needed improvements like pedestrian facilities, meeting ADA requirements, increased capacity, etc.
At CRAB, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our programs and services and in 2023 we had a study conducted on our grant programs. One of the key takeaways was highlighting the need for a funding program for local access roads.
After much review and discussion, we are excited to share that CRAB has officially submitted legislation for a new grant program for local access roads that are not eligible for current grant funding sources.
More details will be coming later this fall, but we will be requesting a phased-in approach for the new program, first asking for funding for staff and initiating a first-call for projects where funding would be provided for design and right-of-way acquisition. In the second biennium we hope to ask for greater funding where we would initiate a second call for projects and provide funding for construction for projects in the first call.
In the meantime, we need help from our counties to tell the story of our local roads to the legislature. We want to share your examples of the challenges local roads are facing east/west, rural/urban, in large and small counties across the state.
We understand that building a new program is no small feat, and that securing funding for said program is a challenge, even in years where budgets are robust. But we are excited for this new phase at CRAB and look forward to working with our partners to further the needs of the county transportation system.
