Committee on Funding and Finance

AASHTO Liaison
Susan Howard, Program Director for Transportation Finance
showard@aashto.org

About the Committee

The Committee shall provide leadership & expertise on federal and state transportation funding and finance issues.

To ensure consistency and the best thinking of the Association, the committee shall work cooperatively, as appropriate, with other committees.

Officers

Chair:
Pete Rahn
Secretary of Transportation, ​Maryland Department of Transportation

Vice Chair:
Lorie Tudor
Deputy Director/Chief Operating Officer, ​Arkansas State Department of Transportation

Charter of the Committee on Funding and Finance

September 26, 2017 (Amended April 10, 2018, to include technical corrections)

Name

The name of this Committee shall be the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Committee on Funding and Finance.

 

Purpose

The Committee on Funding and Finance provides expertise and leadership on federal and state transportation funding and finance issues.

 

Membership

The Chief Executive Officer of each member department may nominate one voting representative and up to two additional non-voting representatives to the Committee on Funding and Finance.

 

Committee Structure

Officers

The officers of the Committee on Funding and Finance shall be a chair and a vice chair. The chair and vice chair terms of office shall be for wo years, which terminates at the end of the first Committee on Funding and Finance annual meeting after this two-year period, or two years from appointment if the Committee on Funding and Finance does not meet annually. Committee chairs and vice chairs may be appointed to succeed themselves for additional two-year terms.

  • Chair—The Committee on Funding and Finance chair shall be a member of the Board of Directors and shall be appointed by the AAHTO President. The chair will ensure that the committee functions properly, that there is full participation during meetings, that all relevant matters are discussed, and that effective decisions are made and carried out. The Chair or his/her designee shall serve as the chair of the Council’s steering committee. If the Chair delegates this responsibility, the Chair shall be an ex-officio member of the Steering Committee.
  • Vice Chair—The vice chair will perform the duties of the chair when the chair is unable to do so.

 

Steering Committee

A steering committee will be established. The role of the steering committee will be to:

  • Ensure the general management of committee business;
  • Address strategic and emerging issues within the committee scope;
  • Determine when and where the committee will meet including AASHTO meetings and/or an annual meeting site;
  • Fill vacancies on the steering committee; and
  • Communicate and coordinate with other appropriate AASHTO groups and outside stakeholders.

The Steering Committee will consist of the chair, vice chair, subcommittee chairs, and up to four other at-large members from the Committee to ensure regional representation (appointed by the chair). Steering Committee members will serve two-year terms with the option of term extensions.

 

Subgroups

The Committees shall have the following subcommittees.

  • Policy and Rulemaking. Responsible for reviewing and recommending national-level policies that relate to funding and finance.
  • Research. Responsible for identifying priority funding and finance-related research and disseminating new research to the rest of the committee.
  • Capacity Building. Responsible for identifying funding and finance related technical capacity building needs to discuss with the committee.

Subcommittee chairs shall be appointed by the Committee chair and shall be members to the parent committee to which they report. Subcommittee chairs will serve for two-year terms with the option of term extensions. All Member Departments may appoint members to each of the three subcommittees. The Committee may establish additional subcommittees, task forces, and communities of practice in accordance with the AASHTO Governing Documents.

 

Reporting

The Committee on Funding and Finance will report to the Board of Directors, except that:

  • All policy and multimodal matters will be reported to the Transportation Policy Forum and then to the Board of Directors, and
  • Technical documents for which the committee does not have delegated final balloting authority from the Board of Directors will progress to the appropriate Council for balloting, as determined/routed by the Transportation Policy Forum (TFP) Steering Committee.

 

Meetings

The Committee on Funding and Financing and its subcommittees will meet in-person biannually. The steering committee will determine the date and location of the meetings. In addition, the committee, steering committee, and subcommittees will hold regularly scheduled conference calls and webinars in order to conduct the business of the committee. A schedule of dates, times, and locations will be made available to members.

 

Voting

Representation by a majority of all Member Departments, exclusive of the U.S. Department of Transportation, shall constitute a quorum to initiate and transact general business.  A majority vote of those members present, exclusive of the U.S. Department of Transportation, on matters of general business shall be considered binding on the committee. For adoption of a draft policy or technical document, a two-thirds favorable vote of all Member Departments, exclusive of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is required for approval, prior to being considered by other appropriate groups within AASHTO.

In the event that the voting committee member is unable to attend a committee meeting, the Member Department may designate, by electronic notification or letter to the AASHTO committee staff liaison, prior to each committee meeting, the individual who shall serve as the Member Department’s representative at the meeting.

 

Strategic Plan, Annual Accomplishments Report, and Annual Action Plan

The committee shall establish a strategic plan and an action plan to help guide committee activities. The strategic plan shall be consistent with the AASHTO goals and objectives as outlined in the Association’s strategic plan. At a minimum, the committee’s strategic plan will be reviewed and updated as needed when AASHTO completes a new strategic plan.

The committee will maintain, at a minimum, a one-year action plan that describes the activities that will be implemented, the individual(s) or subgroups overseeing implementation, and a schedule for completion. The action plan shall be submitted to the Strategic Management Committee prior to the AASHTO annual meeting each year.

Annual accomplishments reports shall highlight the accomplishments of the committee since the last AASHTO annual meeting, and shall be submitted to the Board of Directors and the Strategic Management Committee prior to the AASHTO annual meeting each year.

 

Ethics

All meetings of the committee and its subgroups will be conducted in accordance with the AASHTO policies governing conflicts of interest.

 

Amendments

The Committee on Funding and Finance charter may be amended by a two-thirds affirmative vote of the committee membership and then a two-thirds affirmative vote by the Board of Directors.