Funding Policy over the Years
The Lake County Board has, over the many past years, conducted a campaign to get an additional local source of transportation capital funding to address the congestion issues in the county. As part that effort, the Board has adopted a series of “Transportation Commitment Resolutions”
to address the concern by some that any new local county funds would just be used to reduce the existing county funds going to the highway
improvement program. The new Collar County Transportation Empowerment Fund have provided the long-sought additional transportation capital funds, albeit with the ambiguity now present on what the funds would actually be used for. The Lake County Board has addressed this issue by
adopting, on April 8, 2008, a new Policy, entitled the “Collar County Transportation Empowerment Funding Policy”. The main points of the policy are:
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Lake County will continue working with the State and the RTA to improve transportation and transit in Lake County by supporting the
State’s efforts to secure a Capital Funding Bill.
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Lake County will continue to make congestion mitigation a top priority in Lake County.
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Lake County will prioritize the additional funding received from the 0.25 percent sales tax for transportation and transit purposes.
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Lake County will not reduce the existing revenue going to the County Highway Tax fund, the Matching Tax fund, the County Bridge Tax
fund, or the Motor Fuel Tax fund.
Previous versions of the Transportation Funding Commitment Policy were adopted in January 2005, June 2003, November 2002 and Au-
gust 1998.
The Plan for Using the New Collar County Transportation Empowerment Funds
Given the significance of the county receiving the new Collar County Transportation Empowerment Funding in 2008, a stand-alone, comprehensive plan was adapted to detail where the LCDOT would propose to use the new funds for transportation over the short-term horizon. The new
funds allowed the county to begin addressing the backlog of expansion projects, allowing a shift away from a need to “Stage-Construct” projects
over several years to the more desirable “Get in—Get out—Stay out” approach. The magnitude of this new strategy made bonding crucial.
Executive Summary •
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