Step 6: Financially Constrained Funding Forecast

The TPR requires cities and counties in metropolitan areas to include a financially constrained project list in their TSP. The total cost of the constrained list must be within 125% of anticipated funding for the planning horizon and include projects sponsored by other agencies that fall within the planning area. Cities and counties must coordinate with nearby and overlapping jurisdictions to identify financial responsibility and available funding for projects within their planning boundaries, regardless of who has permitting authority. 

The following sections describe funding sources that should be considered, the process to estimate the financial forecast for the financially constrained plan, and the necessary regional coordination to confirm the forecast.

Funding Sources

Agencies should include all funding sources they anticipate using during the planning horizon to operate, maintain, improve, or construct the transportation system within the planning area. Potential sources include local, regional, state, and federal funding sources that are reasonably likely to continue in the future with consideration for their limitations or explicit purposes. These include but are not limited to the following:

• Local and regional funds can include local taxes, bonds, fees, and grants or any other past funds.
• State and federal funds can include funds based on factors such as population, road mileage, or usage and funds that are grants to the state and local jurisdictions (commonly referred to as formula funds).
• Other local revenues include those from tolls or other revenue-generating facilities.
• Funding for transit operations and capital projects. Consider district funds, biennial grant funds, and Statewide Transportation Improvement Funds.

Developing the Financial Forecast

For the funding sources identified, cities and counties must estimate the amount of funding expected to be available from each identified funding source based on reasonable assumptions for growth or changes in the funding amount and allocations to or within the study area.

The MPO's Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) can serve as the foundation for estimating federal and state funds and can help ensure the TSP aligns with the level of fiscal constraint in the RTP. Cities and counties should review the RTP and other planning documents and coordinate with ODOT and other facility owners when forecasting funding and identifying projects with funding commitments. After forecasting their own transportation funding, cities and counties should subtract the funding committed by the local agency toward projects in the RTP and the funds needed for operations and maintenance. The remainder can be used for the rest of the agency's projects.

The steps to develop the funding forecast include:

1. Review the RTP to estimate federal, state, and regional funding for the region, identify projects on facilities owned by others (constrained and unconstrained), document assumed transit service levels, inform estimates of funding available from non-local sources for projects on local facilities, and identify if any local funding has been committed to projects on facilities owned by others. Using this information, the local TSP should describe the regional funding picture, identify constrained and unconstrained projects on facilities owned by others, and verify the approach at the ODOT Region level for assumptions about federal and state grants and how those are allocated into the financially constrained plan.