Good morning.

It is Monday, April 13th.

Welcome to the Transportation and Environment Committee.

We officially are starting our budget discussions today with six items on the agenda for the FY29 operating budget.

First item is the Transportation General Fund.

And the Transportation General Fund provide services within four divisions of MC DOT, traffic engineering and operations, highway services, and portions of the transportation engineering and the director's offices.

And these services are presented as seven programs, community transportation safety, non-roadway right of way maintenance, parking outside the parking districts, transportation infrastructure, construction and maintenance, transportation management operations and emergency storm response, and transportation policy planning and project development, and then finally Transportation Services General Administration.

Mr.

Kenny, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you.

So I will go through the staff report, give a high level overview for each of the budget items we have presented today, and then tee up the items for committee uh review.

So the uh for the starting here with the as you introduce the transportation general fund, the executive recommends an increase of uh two point uh two uh two million seven hundred and eighty-five thousand nine hundred and thirteen uh dollars or four point one three percent uh from the FY26 approved operating budget.

Uh 596,166 of these dollars uh are in program and staffing additions, enhancements, and other cost increases that must be placed on the reconciliation lists per the council president's approach.

Uh the committee may choose to take these items as reductions, but otherwise they will go on the reconciliation list uh per the council president's approach.

Um these items uh these are uh four such items uh in this budget uh and are as follows um $35,000 uh for enhancement of operating budget impacts from various capital projects, $250,000 for the addition of uh civil parking enforcement, $27,900 for the enhancement for new subdivision roads maintenance, and $13,266 for interruptible power system maintenance.

We'll go through those items in greater detail later on.

The executive's recommendation also includes $575,000 in programmatic reductions uh due to fiscal capacity uh comprised of the following two items.

Uh $125,000 reduction uh in the promotional giveaways for school zone pedestrian safety, and $450,000 uh of reduction uh for uh road resurfacing.

Um the remainder of the executives proposed uh increases, uh 200 uh $2.7 million in change come from compensation and other cost increases that are not required to be placed on the reconciliation list.

Um the operating uh the operating budget equity tool analysis uh completed uh by the department uh working with the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice, uh provided uh a score of of nine um out of eleven, and uh states that MCDOT has maintained a strong core team, promoted awareness of learning opportunities uh backed by data-backed equity analysis tools and enabled more consistent utilization of information from these sources and decision making.

Uh there is more information on that uh in later on in the packet, as well as uh a full uh fledged um explanation uh in an attached circle page.

Um the committee will also uh with this budget review four relevant uh adjustments to the capital improvements, the FY27 to 32 capital improvements program recommended by the county executive uh that is associated with this budget.

Um these are the Beach Drive Bridge, Park Valley Road Bridge, uh bicycle pedestria area and improved area improvements, uh, Wheaton CBD, and Burton's Vaccess Road projects.

Um the the FY27 recommended budget uh from the executive and how it compares to the FY26 budget broken out by general fund and leaf vacuuming fund and personnel and operating costs is summarized on page two in table one.

I'll pause if there are any comments before proceeding.

Keep going.

So as we mentioned, there are four items that are set to be added to the reconciliation list.

These are starting with the operating budget impacts from various capital projects.

These $305,000 increase is split between advanced the uh five CIP projects, which are indicated on the bottom of page four of the staff report, and are generally for maintenance and providing electricity to new traffic signal and street light systems that the county has constructed.

There are notes uh for each of these items uh of what the effect would be of not funding uh these uh increases.

Um obviously these will be uh relevant uh for the reconciliation process going forward.

Um in this case, uh there are uh maintenance and and operations uh needs that would likely have to be absorbed uh by other uh by reductions elsewhere if this item were not funded.

Um moving on to the second uh increase uh that we'll talk about in detail, the top of page five of the staff report is the civilian parking enforcement increase of 250,000.

Um the executive recommends adding this uh to support parking enforcement operations, the support the parking enforcement operations of the Montgomery County Police Department, um, expanding the parking outside the parking districts program beyond its current scope of administering the residential permit parking program and enforcing regul parking regulations in peak hour traffic lanes.

Normally MCDOT's operations only include the parking lot districts.

The executive is projecting that $80,000 of this increase will be paid for in new parking fines collected by this program, while 170,000 of it will be paid in new net new uh funding from uh the operating budget uh speaking general fund.

Um moving on to the third increase, the new subdivision roads maintenance of 27,900.

Um this is an increase uh that the if you'll likely remember the council sees uh most years in the executive's recommended budget.

Um these are uh new subdivision roads built by developers and accepted for maintenance uh by MC DOT uh in a given year.

Um not funding this increase, which the council has chosen to do due to fiscal capacity uh in some fiscal years would result in maintenance costs being deferred uh to future fiscal years and may result result in roads uh deteriorating more quickly.

And finally, uh the uh last uh increase for the reconciliation list uh is uninterruptible power systems maintenance.

Um DOT if if there are questions, DOT and OMB can speak to this in more detail.

Um but there are uh the state highway administration has uh requested or required more independent, uninterruptible power sources uh for state-owned and county maintained uh traffic signals on uh state highways.

Um this increases to cover the cost of those items.

Um in the recommended budget, uh this item is uh supported by uh an increase in tax-supported resources from the general fund, um, but would likely be offset by increased state contributions going forward.

Um it will just based on the council president's approach would be added to the reconciliation list currently um, but with a note that this there are there are ongoing developments here in this uh that there will likely be revenue to offset uh this increase going forward.

Um there any questions or comments on these reconciliation list items?

Yes.

Thank you.

Jinx you're a go for it.

Okay.

Uh I'm gonna start on the last item, the 13,000, and um, you know, and I think this is a push and pull we always have with what goes on the reconciliation list and what doesn't, but I'd love to hear from DOT because it's $13,000 and it seems to me a ridiculous thing to put on the reconciliation list.

Uh there are ongoing conversations happening.

It's only $13,000, and I think we should just assume this in the budget if we do have to pay it.

I think that makes sense personally.

Um obviously the council will follow its own approach with the budget.

Uh, but these are conditions where the power supplies and state signals may not be performing as well as as we would like.

Uh when we had the airplane crash uh into the high voltage power lines a couple years ago, this became very evident where the county uh uninterruptible power supplies were working and state signal locations were not, so you would have a major intersection that would be dark in a quarter where all the other signals were working, which increased the danger uh very significantly from that.

So in our minds, this is a must-have item, uh, and we'd we'd love to see the council move this forward.

And understanding the difficulty.