1. Communicating Highway Maintenance Budget Needs to Elected Officials Lessons Learned in Arizona Lonnie Hendrix, PE Asst State Maintenance Engineer

2. Budget Process in Arizona Maintain only state highway system Needs identified/prioritized internally – No connection to new construction – Base + new features Forwarded to Gov and legislature Appropriated as ‘lump sum” ~ $105M Transportation Board controls construction ~ $800M

3. Budget Plumbing

4. Past Budget Request Practices Reams from MMS Spreadsheets and charts Just asking for $$ to maintain the new stuff No matter how extensive and compelling the justification….it was never enough

5. Early Experience with LOS Built modest system in 1998 after NCHRP Measured in nine categories Public phone survey Annual report to legislature But, still no correlation with budget

6. What They Say….. “Looks OK to me” “Reallocate from somewhere else” “Do it anyway” “So what”

7. Obstacles to Communication Poor understanding of “maintenance” Lack of personal contact and constraints to talking directly Short-term thinking of legislators “Growth state” mentality Media’s negative focus Adversarial history, lack of trust Lack of good measurements – Difficult to answer “what if” questions

8. So…What Are We Doing About It? Enhancing LOS with legislative buy-in – Shift in responsibility for budget Increasing management support Using more PR tools Showing a better attitude Increasing education with more direct contact

9. Performance Based Budgeting? Can 25 checkmarks on a clipboard determine a $105 million budget?

10. Do you know what this man is doing?

11. Questions?