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Okay. Anytime. Yeah, specific question.

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Welcome to County Connection, the official podcast of the Washington State Association of Counties,

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where we dive into the legislative issues shaping the future of our communities.

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From budgets to public safety, infrastructure to elections, we'll break down what's happening

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in Olympia and how it impacts counties from across the Evergreen State. Stay informed,

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stay engaged, and join us as we amplify the voice of Washington's 39 counties.

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Welcome everyone to episode number two of the County Connection podcast. I'm Paul Jewell,

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the government relations director for the Washington State Association of Counties,

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and I'm back in the studio, which is really just Eric Johnson's old office

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here at the Wasack building in downtown Olympia. But I'm here with Axel Swanson again. Axel is

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the managing director for the Washington State Association of County Engineers. Welcome back,

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Axel. It's good to see you. Thanks, Paul. Thanks for having me back for week two. Yeah, it's hard

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to believe it's already week two. And today you want to talk about some specific transportation

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legislation. Is that right? Yeah, I think we had a good conversation last week about sort of the

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overview of the state budget and the potential impacts it would have for us, the county level,

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and then some revenue priorities we're looking for. And so this week, one of those has come

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forward through a bill, has a hearing today, and thought it might be of interest to talk about more

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specifically. Well, what bill is that exactly? House Bill 1098, sponsored by Representative Lowe,

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and it's going to be heard at four o'clock in the House Transportation Committee.

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Representative Lowe has been a great friend to counties this year, and this is another example

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of that. Of course, Representative Lowe is also a member of the Washington State Association of

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Counties, being a council member from Stahomish County. So just a little shout out there to

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Representative Lowe. Thanks for all your help. So tell us a little bit about this bill. You

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mentioned it has a hearing today. This is a good one for county roads and county transportation.

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Why don't you dive into a bit of the details? Yeah. And to tell the story about this bill,

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we've got to kind of go back, I guess, roughly a year or so or even farther. But this bill

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largely came from a study that the County Road Administration Board had worked on. They had gotten

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some funding through the 23-25 biennial budget, and that funding helped them to hire a consultant

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and work on kind of doing something that I think is fairly noble. They took an inward look at their

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grant programs to see how effective they were for us at the counties, see if they could make any

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changes and improve them, and also see if there was any gaps. And so this bill really comes out

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of that study and the primary recommendation, which it turned out there is some significant

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funding gaps for some of or most of the county roads. So you mentioned the County Road

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Administration Board. You've kind of alluded to the fact that they manage some grant programs

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for us. They've done this study that this bill is based on. But for the new listener, for the new

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county commissioner, who maybe just took office in January, what is the County Road Administration

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Board and what do they do? Yeah. So the County Road Administration Board is very unique if you

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look nationally. I think we're the only state that has sort of that equivalent or type of an agency.

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But it is a state agency. Its purpose is to have oversight responsibility for county road departments.

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But they act very much as a partner in that. And in fact, their board is made up of county

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commissioners and county engineers. And one of their primary functions that they do that

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that we are very interested in is they have some grant programs that are available to us

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and that help us with the preservation and maintenance of the county transportation system.

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So they have the RAP program and the CAP program. That's rural arterial program and

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CalMessup the CAP program. But regardless, those two primary, there's some other programs,

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but I want to just focus on those two specifically. So the RAP program is a very good program. It's

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competitive. It's prioritized. So you apply and your project would be selected. What does RAP stand for again?

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Rural arterial. Rural arterial. Yes. And now these are classifications of roadways, but you know,

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an arterial would be functionally as a road classification or function. Think of kind of

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a main thoroughfare or connector, higher average daily traffic. We call it ADT. Kind of an important

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functional road for the system connection. Now the CAP program is more straightforward.

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It's the CAP. So the CAP is arterial preservation program. Right. Isn't that county arterial

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preservation program, CAPP? Yes. I've got a ton of acronyms. And so yes, the CAP program

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functionally works much more straightforward. So through the CAP program, counties receive a

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distribution of motor vehicle fuel tax for the preservation of their roads. But that's based upon

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some things that they have to do to show that they have a preservation plan and they have to certify

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that they have that. They have to submit that and they have to be in what's called a standing of

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good practice. And so that's kind of where some of the oversight role for the County Road Administration

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Board comes in is making sure that, you know, we're checking in the box as a department on the state

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requirements rules and other things so that we can receive the funding. So they have these funding

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programs that they manage for counties for really what are classified as arterial roads. But then

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they also do some oversight to make sure that there are standards, what you called standards

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of good practice in place in county public works departments across the state. Yeah. And, you know,

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a lot of that responsibility rests with the county engineer position and then with public works

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directors and other, you know, other supervisors and managers throughout the public works department.

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Okay. So that's the group that did the study essentially that this bill is based on that you

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wanted to talk about today. The County Road Administration Board did sort of an inward looking

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study over the course of this last interim to see how well their grant programs were functioning

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and if they were benefiting, you know, counties as they should be or if there was room for improvement

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and then also to look for funding gaps and the funding gap piece is kind of what I want to get

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to because the number one recommendation there was that in fact there is no state or federal funding

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for the vast majority of county roads which are local access roads. So when you say that there

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isn't a lot of funding for the vast majority of county roads and then you said what did you call

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them? Local access roads. Also, you know, maybe we touched on this last week but for the listener

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who might just be tuning in, counties are responsible for almost half of all the bridges in Washington

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State but bridges when we talk about bridges often we're talking about bridges that are

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long enough, in this case over 20 feet, so that they have to be reported to the National Bridge

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Inventory and they're on sort of this federal list. There's a lot of bridges in our state,

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specifically county-owned ones that are under 20 feet so when we talk about local access roads

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we're actually talking about short span bridges as well, bridges that are under 20 feet. So we've

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got short span bridges that are part of this gap that was identified and those are bridges that

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are under 20 feet. Anything over that goes on this national registry that you were talking about. I

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assume there's other funding programs for that, that's why it goes on there. Correct. And then

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you also mentioned this other type of road because when you were first talking about CRAB, which is

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what we all refer to as the County Road Administration Board, you talked about the RAP program and the CAP

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program which are for arterials that you said are like main thoroughfares, you know, made like major

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county roads. Is this other classification that you're talking about, is that a different type

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of road or does that include arterials or what does that mean? No, yeah, it would be a different

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designation, lower average daily traffic and not categorized in that way so it could, you know,

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so it's eligible for that funding. And so the the study showed that there was there wasn't any

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funding support for that classification of road and you're saying that's the majority of county

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roads? Yeah, correct. So we kind of went over this a bit last week but just as a reminder counties are

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responsible for well over half of all the lane miles and or just road miles in the state. So lane

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miles, you know, we have over 78,000, I think we're just over 39,000 road miles and so when you look

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at those miles that we take care of, 49,000 of those are local access roads or 39% of the entire

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roadways in Washington State. So there's a lot of ways to look at this but I mean if you just think

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of 39% of all the roads in Washington State are local access roads and are not eligible, you know,

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largely for federal or state funding, they are dependent on us at the county being able to take

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care of them with local revenue and you and I have had that talk and we'll probably continue to talk

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about the challenges we have around local revenue at the county level. Well that's a huge portion

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then of the roads that counties have and that the residents basically depend on just to get around.

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Absolutely and one of the things that I'm challenged with and I get frustrated with is just

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that county roads or city roads or state roads, the people that we work for, the citizens of

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Washington State, the people that drive on these roads, they don't care who owns the road and so

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it's really important that we look at this holistically as a transportation system

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and that people can transition from a state highway to a county road to a city street to

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their driveway seamlessly and safely and if 39% or sorry 36% of all the lane miles in the state

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are these local access roads and we're depending on property tax capped at 1% plus construction to

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fund them, well you know we're trending in the wrong direction so that's my hope. We can get

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something established with House Bill 1090, a new program. This bill would not fund the program,

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we still have to work with the legislature and within the transportation budget to get this

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funded long term but I think it brings awareness to the issue and it establishes the framework to

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get us in a better position. Okay well so this bill, just to recap really quickly, this bill

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based on a study that was done by the Crab Board creates a program to help provide funding for a

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huge portion of the roads that there really isn't any funding for, right? Correct. Now other than

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our local funding but we know gas taxes and decline and property tax is not keeping up. So

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let's dive a little deep into some of the specifics here as far as you know what counties, what our

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members can actually, will actually be able to use this program for. So obviously the program

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and the bill are fairly new if the bill is passed. So in rough form like I said this is for local

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access roads, this also includes short span bridges and if you think about short span bridges, we talk

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about bridges that are less than 20 feet, we're getting into now a conversation around a whole

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bunch of fish barrier removal projects potentially that are going to move forward. So fish barriers

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could be part of this funding program? Well certainly if there's a local access road and it

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has a culvert that is blocking fish passage, it could potentially be part of the overall project

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or the I think the project itself. Some of the reason we're laughing and go back and forth about

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the details is this is a bill that would change RCW to create the account for the program and it

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does have a rough outline of the program, the type of roads and projects that are eligible,

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some of the requirements to be eligible, some of the criteria. So you know looking at the

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project specifically as it relates to its positive impact on overburdened communities,

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things like that, but there's a lot of details left out because the county road administration

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board as a state agency would have to go through some rule making to kind of really put that

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program together. Just broadly though what types of projects are we talking about like resurfacing

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of a local road or we talk about replacing the bridge, are we talking about routine maintenance,

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like you know a lot of local roads get chip seal treatments every few years, are we talking about

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that type of project or are we talking about you know tearing the whole thing up and replacing it,

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what about a brand new road, what about taking a gravel road to pavement, are all of those the

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types of projects that would be eligible under this program or not? Yeah I mean I think I believe so,

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I think each of those things you mentioned would depend on the application and how that road and

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the let's call it solution for the roadway fits in with the criteria, but yeah you know anything

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it could be rebuilding the road, it could be you know converting or changing what's a current fish

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passage barrier to a short span bridge or in some cases it'll probably have to be a 20 foot bridge,

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but the point being that you know anytime we're going to do preservation and maintenance on a

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roadway it's going to it's going to improve the long-term outlook for deferred maintenance.

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We know the farther we go behind on deferred maintenance and the farther in between doing

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some of the preventative things the overall how much the overall cost goes up is astronomical so

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I think all those things you mentioned would be part of this, but like I said some of the details

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are not in the bill because they'll be part of the rule making around the program. But the idea is to

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make it sounds like the idea is to make it pretty flexible. Yeah hopefully that's always one of our

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goals. Now you mentioned that this bill doesn't actually fund the program. Where is the funding

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supposed to come from? The initial bill as I understand it would establish the program in

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this biennium and I think there is a if I recall it's five million dollar request, but in the next

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biennium I think we would be looking for something more like 40 million because we need to get the

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program started, we need to get the rules and criteria set up for the program, but then we

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would need a more significant capital appropriation to really start taking applications and doing

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projects. Where would that funding come from? I think we're going to be looking at that moving

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forward and tracking closely with some of the conversation you and I had last week on where

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the state goes with transportation revenue overall this session and for the biennium.

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So you said a five million dollar appropriation hopefully to get it started then 40 million

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dollars after that. That sounds like a lot of money but for two guys like us that have dealt

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in the public sector for a long time and you know have watched the cost of road construction

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maintenance just explode over time much faster right than regular inflation in many cases and

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certainly a lot faster than the property tax revenues can increase year over year to take

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care of it. It doesn't seem like quite enough when we're talking about 39 percent of the county road

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miles that currently exist. Is the idea behind this funding to kind of be the sole source for

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maintaining and updating those roadways or are counties supposed to be bringing their own funds

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to the table along with these resources? Yeah good question. No this will not be a sole source that's

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going to fix you know every local access road that's in bad shape you know that 36 percent of

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all roads in the state we talked about. This is you know a program that's aimed to help us with

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the negative situation we're facing with our local revenue sources both the property tax not keeping

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up and the gas tax distributions that are forecasted to decline and then you know moving forward I

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think I think ideally what this program would do is capture those highest priority local access

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roads right. It's a competitive program. There is a match requirement we could talk a little

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bit about that you know I don't think from our position we're opposed to state grant programs

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having a match requirement. We understand that oftentimes the state or the the federal partners

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want us to put some of our own local funding in to the project but you know we've talked

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before and can talk more about the challenges local jurisdictions face with that as well. Yeah

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for sure. Well Axel it sounds like a great program. It sounds like it's something that

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you're definitely supporting. It sounds like it provides some really desperately needed resources

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for something that the CRAB study identified as as a gap in support for the county road system

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that currently is in place. You said this bill is going to have a hearing today so I assume

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we'll be providing some comments maybe even some testimony in favor. How can our members get

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involved if they also want to throw some support behind this bill? Yeah it's got a hearing today.

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House transportation at four o'clock. It's house bill 1098. If you you know want to start tracking

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it and see how it goes I will be there. I am signed up to testify likely saying many of the

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things that we've talked about in this conversation and then you know we we hope for a senate companion

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bill so hopefully stay tuned and and if you sign up to track this bill hopefully there'll be a

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senate companion bill that will also get a hearing and and then moving along. We hope that the bill

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makes progress and makes it through to the finish line by the end of session. Well thanks again for

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joining us today Axel. It's been great chatting with you. I learned a lot about county roads.

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Certainly learned a lot about county road classifications. I hope our listeners did too

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and I hope you'll join us again maybe in a week or two and we'll dive into something else on

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transportation systems. Does that work for you? That sounds great Paul. Thanks for having me back

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this week and I look forward to maybe next week talking about another bill or some other things

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going on with county transportation. Sounds great take care till then. Thanks for tuning

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in to County Connection. Stay in the loop by subscribing to us through your preferred podcasting

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go-to source for the latest news and updates from the Washington State Association of Counties.

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