Every year the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) as the council of governments (COG) and the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) must publish for the public a list of projects that have received federal funding for the previous fiscal year. This list is known as the Annual List of Obligated Projects (ALOP).
NIRPC is organized under the provisions of Indiana Code 36-7-7.6 and its purpose is to institute and maintain a comprehensive planning and programming process for transportation, economic development, and environmental policy, as well as provide a coordinative management process for Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties. NIRPC is responsible for the management of transit funding and the distribution of Department of Transportation funds for the metropolitan area of northwest Indiana. Thus, NIRPC is responsible for transportation planning and the managing of all surface infrastructure transportation projects that a) use federal funds, b) have congestion and air quality impacts, or c) are regionally significant.
The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2015. This act provided funding for surface transportation infrastructure planning and investment. It requires that MPOs publish annually a list of projects for which federal funds have been obligated in the preceding year (23 U.S.C. of 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53). This requirement is a continuation from the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP 21) Act from 2012. The statute further states that this list must be published within 90 days of the close of the preceding state fiscal year.
In Indiana, the state fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. This requirement is intended to increase the transparency of federal government spending on transportation projects within Metropolitan Planning Areas (MPAs). NIRPC’s report that fulfills this requirement for the fiscal year 2020 as well as previous years can be found on NIRPC’s website and is titled FY 2020 Annual List of Obligated Projects.
The term obligation in the report is the federal government’s legal commitment to pay the federal share of a project’s eligible costs. An obligated project is one that has been authorized by the Federal Highway Agency (FHWA) or the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) as meeting certain eligibility requirements for federal funds. For projects under FHWA jurisdiction, this obligation occurs when FHWA approves the project and executes the project agreement. For FTA projects, the obligation occurs when the FTA grant is awarded. Funds are considered obligated even if no funds have been transferred or expended for a period of time. Most surface infrastructure projects are eligible for federal funds covering up to 80% of the total cost of the project. Some safety-related infrastructure projects are eligible for up to 90% of the total costs.
Once funds for a project have been obligated, the project’s sponsor is able to begin incurring eligible expenses and then request a reimbursement. Each request must demonstrate that the recipient incurred the costs that are approved within the project agreement and has met federal guidelines. Obligations for a project or a service do not necessarily originate or complete within the same fiscal year that they were granted and the initial amount doesn’t always equal the total end cost of the project. An obligation may be for only one phase of a project, such as design & engineering, land acquisition, construction, or inspection. Although an obligation does not consider non-federal funds for the project such as local or private funds, the federal government does require the project’s total cost to be made available and conspicuous.
In fiscal year 2020, the federal government allocated $217,831,891 for transportation-related projects in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties. The includes a variety of project sponsors (the entity that essentially “owns” a project), including the Indiana Department of Transportation, counties, municipalities, transit operators, and NIRPC.
In general, obligated funds were spent in eight different areas:
Bike/Pedestrian Facilities – Over $9 Million
Bridge Improvements – Almost $33 Million
Intersection Improvements (Congestion) – Over $4 Million
Intersection Improvements (Safety) – Over $11 Million
Roadway Improvements (Rehabilitation) – Over $74 Million
Roadway Improvements (Safety) – Almost $1.3 Million
Transit – Over $80.5 Million
Other Miscellaneous Projects – Over $4.5 Million
