City officials approved an updated interlocal agreement for the organization that handles transportation planning for the city and county.
The Columbus Board of Public Works and Safety approved an update to a 2003 agreement for the Columbus Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO), which works to gain federal funds for transportation improvement projects.
City officials said the new agreement clears up some vague language in the initial agreement and codifies practices they’ve found have worked.
The organization uses “two pots of money,” CAMPO Manager Ashley Beckort said — planning and construction funds. Planning funds are used for project management for things like copy paper, for example.
“The one pot of money for planning purposes, we have three years to use it. So sometimes we’re banking it for bigger projects,” Beckort said.
Construction funds are used to pay for road improvements, 80% of which is made up of federal money with 20% being local matching-funds. Beckort said construction funds are “use it, or we lost it.”
CAMPO has a policy board which is a decision-making body, and a technical committee which makes recommendations to the board. The policy board is made up seven people including the mayor, a Bartholomew County Commissioner, a city and county council member, a city and county plan commission member, along with a representative from the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT).
CAMPO’s formation was mandated by the federal government after the 2000 US Census when Columbus’ population exceeded 50,000, according to a memo sent to board members by city/county planning director Jeff Bergman.
“The planning department is currently reviewing the continued accuracy and applicability of the original CAMPO organizational documents, beginning with this 2003 interlocal agreement,” Bergman wrote to board members. “Our observation is that some of the 2003 assumptions for CAMPO’s operation have not withstood the test of time. In the 20+ years since its formation, the actual operation of CAMPO has evolved in ways that have improved efficiency and coordination but depart from the original agreement.”
Some of those assumptions were that the Town of Edinburgh would join CAMPO and that representatives from Shelby and Johnson counties would participate, which has not happened.
The 2003 agreement was between the city, county and the Town of Edinburgh — the new agreement allows an opt-in clause so Edinburgh can join if they choose, but are not required to, per Beckort.
“The original documents kind of took its best guess at how MPO would fuction,” Beckort said. “Who would be on the board, how finances would work. They kind of just tried to make a best guess, and over time, we found that there’s certain things that we were doing that seemed to work, we’re just putting it in code now.”
One example is how CAMPO budgets throughout the year. Beckort called the 2003 agreement process for budgeting “very vague” and said it involved a “convoluted” process which required approval from multiple boards.
“The new plan is very clear,” Beckort said. “It talks about basically what we have been doing for the last, at least, 10 years. (CAMPO) goes through the city council budgeting process, and then at the end of the year, we get a reimbursement from the country for their portion. So that seems to be working as a system.”
Beckort noted the updated agreement was approved by CAMPO’s technical committee and policy board, along with the Bartholomew County commissioners.
