Maintaining the Existing Infrastructure: Overview of Current Issues and Practices in Local Government Planning

摘要

Local governments should jointly consider capital and operating budgets in making decisions about maintenance of the infrastructure. They should use life - cycle costing as well as some systematic, partial, condition assessment and replacement analysis. While procedures exist for assessing the condition of the infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewers, and wastewater treatment), they generally have not been widely tested or adopted by local governments for regular condition monitoring. Most local governments make little regular provision for replacement analysis procedures (comparisons of replacement versus rehabilitation versus maintenance options), except where required as part of Federal grant regulations. Formal processes for ranking and prioritizing capital choices across project proposals and across service areas are more frequently used in local government. However, these rankings tend to be highly subjective. The technical procedures for condition assessment and, particularly, replacement analysis are still largely untested in local government. Moreover, systematic consideration of the full implications of Federal and other alternative funding sources seems to be seldom done by local governments; this step should become part of the replacement analysis process. Organizationally, the capital infrastructure choice process is highly decentralized with specific choices and project - ranking done primarily at the agency level. While the joint consideration of capital and operating budgets and a regular condition assessment and replacement analysis seem highly desirable, they should not be comprehensively mandated until the technical techniques have been better developed and tested for local government use. Tables, footnotes, and 68 references are provided. (Author abstract modified).