RAC Region 4 Meeting Notes Sunday, January 22, 2012
TRB Annual Meeting Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, DC

Introductions/Attendees: Ron Curb (OK), Anne Ellis (AZ), Clint Adler (AK), Rick Collins (TX), Leni Oman (WA), Ned Parrish (ID), Chris Westlund (OK), Barnie Jones (OR), Cameron Kergaye (UT), Jake Kononov (CO), Ken Chambers (NV), Dave Huft (SD), Chris Christianson (MT), Sue Sillick (MT), Tim McDowell (WY), Jim Sweeney (AK), John Moulden (FHWA).

NCHRP Process: On the matter of continuing projects – issue: how well are these programs being documented; why are they important to continue. Important in view of safety – but there are no discretionary dollars. Over the years, SCOR has shared this concern and has asked questions; close to reducing the amount of funding for some of these projects. This information has been primarily anecdotal; there is not much “hard” data. It would be nice if we could tell them what metric to provide.

NCHRP problem statements and method of managing the process: Research managers evaluate these themselves or assign them to others; we may want to ask for feedback after the problem statements come back from our state reviewers.

If you have a particular problem statement you would like the RAC to consider or promote: Comments due to RAC 4 Feb 10 for ballot submittal Feb 17: send to RAC 4 ListServ by February 10th.

Dave Huft is promoting D-14 (characterizing rough pavements)

List of NCHRP Topic Areas (added after meeting):

Part I: Continuation Funding

1.1 Annual Projects

1.2 AASHTO Committee Support Projects

1.3 Research Projects

Part II: New Problems

A. Administration

B. Planning

C. Design

D. Materials and Construction

E. Soils and Geology

F. Maintenance

G. Traffic

SP. Special Projects

FEDERAL and POOLED FUND Update –
Lisa Williams and Leslie Wright (new SPR program mgr and partnerships coordinator)
Pooled Fund website launched in October – new features to start projects more effectively. New role of authorized user: Lead Agency Facilitator, someone who does not manage the project but has an assistant role. Also reminder about April 12 Webinar (2nd Wednesday of month), 1-2:30 Eastern Time. Schedule for the year is posted on the TPF website. New quarterly reporting format, which came from RAC; standardized to be more useful and consistent. Available in both Word and Adobe .pdf format.

Updated manual will be available by the end of January. Closeout of TPF projects – thank you to RAC members for their hard work in getting this done. All of the funds that have been contributed to lead agencies will be in their hands. Because you (lead states) have the responsibility, you must keep detailed records of what you are expending. This will help with the new closeout process. It will be very clear as to what you will need to do. New procedures will be available soon; updating by the end of this month.

Want to have the old projects closed out by the end of July 2012. States will be responsible for all closeout procedures; we will not have to know the FMIS codes, but we will need the details should a problem arise. There is some turnover in the federal offices, so not everyone knows how to do everything. Lisa will be developing a task force, with members coming from the financial perspective (financial manager at Turner-Fairbanks, e.g.) – rep from FHWA CFO, office of budget, FMIS team, Division office, financial managers from State DOTs. Looking for someone who is familiar with the Pooled Fund process and has dealt with these problems. Kickoff meeting planned for the second week in February. If anyone feels that their financial person would be a good candidate, please contact Lisa Williams at .
Q. Are FHWA financial people invited to participate in Webinars?
A. Yes, and many times there are more of them than there are of state DOT people participating on the call. We would like to change that. We would like more financial participation from our states. There is a “disconnect” in this process.

Q. We appreciate the improvement in the closeout process – example: funds got misdirected to the wrong state; when they were found, FHWA kept them, and this has caused shortfalls at our end. What is being done to correct and prevent this from happening in the future? This is not isolated, in fact other states have ‘found’ funding that was supposed to have been committed to TPF but was not.
A. Please get us the information, as we would like to get this straightened out.

Q. Are there some ways to institutionalize the information and knowledge better? We do not feel this is confined to any state in particular, but ‘fixes’ and solutions for one state could be applied to others.
A. (Don’t think this question was actually addressed)

Q. Is there any way to improve the search function on the website?
A. Yes. I [Lisa Williams] am in constant communication with the Webmaster, and she would be happy to look at it. Lisa Loyo may be able to help with this. Some states are concerned with having financial information “out there” and prefer it to be behind the wall. Also having a difficult time getting changes through the Federal side, so there are problems on both sides.

Q. Some of the money that was obligated through the old (and new) process – I am not getting any feedback saying whether or not the funds were spent on these closed projects. We need to get a message out on the RAC asking everyone to respond to these inquiries.
A. The new manual will address this; the memo and forms are in there.

Q. Building communication between Leslie’s function and the non-financial people – was very helpful. Good, clear communication between these two functions would be great.
A. Basic functions include SPR Part 2, building partnerships, teaming with Turner-Fairbanks, International (and their IP rights etc.), social media-type outlets…I will be your resource to get your questions answered (Leslie Wright).

QUESTIONS ABOUT SCOR (SANDRA LARSON) – SCOR Task Force on Reauthorization – Deb Elston, Chris Jenks, CalTrans, John Halikowski, Sandra Larson held conference call last week…conveyed concern and complete and thorough discussion about 6% from SPR being used for SHRP2 (5% from Part 1, 1% from Part 2). This will continue to be conveyed to those people working on the bill.
Q. Is there a summary of what AASHTO is putting together?
A. We can ask, don’t know if they have anything yet.
A. Policy language that half of FHWA’s research program should be spent on policy (not in favor of that)
A. Policy that half of ITS should be spent on deployment, not research
good discussion on all these, concerns were heard.
Jim McDonnell asked if any of us want to participate on a call with GAO to discuss whether all Federally funded construction projects should use conduit (specific ITS issue). Call has taken place – overall NOT in favor of this being mandated. Sandra will send link to e-mail to Dave Huft; any others who would like it. Clint: get them to focus on outcomes, not methods. Thought is that the industry is behind this push.

* * *

BYLAWS CHANGING
Proposed Changes for Bylaws for RAC 4 changing to Procedures – by next meeting February 23 (e-mail vote Yea or Nay); changing cycle for Chair/Vice Chair so that our hosting of meeting does not coincide with the Chair stepping down. Latest changes were sent out ca. 2-weeks ago. Clint will host “GoToMeeting” Leni will set up with VOIP or teleconf capabilities.

TASK FORCE PARTICIPATION
Need your participation on task forces –

·  Coord./Collaboration – Anne has joined as Co-Chair.

·  Program Management and Quality – Dave, Ned and Sue

·  Research Coordination and Collaboration – Sue, Anne, Cameron, at least one other person

·  Value of Research – Tim McDowell, Jake’s office, Roberto -- Competition for “Sweet 16” due

·  Admin (and Education) – Barnie is the only RAC4 member on Education, we could use another member: Asked for volunteers: Clint Adler steps up! Also: Barnie drafted a Guidebook for Research Managers – Cynthia Gerst (OH) volunteered to work on this. Deb Elston notified them that there is work in progress on this (Leslie Wright) – so Barnie will be meeting with Leslie during TRB to explore opportunities.

·  TKN – Looking for someone to lead discussion on research report dissemination. Have information, need someone to lead the activity. What do we want to do with UTC reports? How are we managing the various lists we have out there?
Related to this, RSS feed for getting reports and information related to them – all the alternatives to disseminate information that did not exist 25 years ago should be explored. Dale Steele (AZ) has been doing a great job of working on creating repositories – in process of working on report now.

List of RAC 4 members on Task Forces (please let me know of any needed updates or omissions):

TASK FORCE / RAC REG4 MEMBERS / REG4 FRIENDS/OTHERS
Administration / Clint Adler; Barnie Jones
Value of Research / Roberto DeDios; David Huft; Clayton Schumaker / Abdul Wakil; Anne Ellis; Michael Patrich; Tim McDowell
Coord and Collaboration / Sue Sillick (Co-Chair); Leni Oman; Anne Ellis (Co-Chair); Cameron Kergaye / Ron Curb; Ned Parrish; Clayton Schumaker; Pete Zaniewski
Program Mgt. and Quality / Jake Kononov; Ned Parrish / Clint Adler; Dave Huft; Sue Sillick
Transportation Knowledge Networks / Leni Oman; Ron Curb / Sue Sillick

Tuesday 7 PM – dinner at Afghan Grill – Meet by the “Pyramid” in Marriott lobby
Wednesday 6 PM – dinner “ad hoc”

Video presentation suggestion: referred to the Conduct of Research Committee (meeting Monday afternoon)

Motion to Adjourn
Second
Adjourn

Please take a look at the RAC 4 listing on the next page. Does this need to be updated?

I know Oklahoma is working on officially adding John Bowman and Chris Westlund as members.

I noticed that many of the email addresses have CAPITAL letters in them...not sure if this could create a problem.

RAC_REG4 Membership (Last Update: January 24, 2012)
/ Casey Abe
/ Craig Abernathy
/ Clint Adler
/ Ken Chambers
/ Blair Chapman
/ Nancy Chinlund
/ Kris Christensen
/ Rick Collins
/ Ron Curb
/ Frank T. Darmiento
/ Steven Ege

/ Anne Ellis
Debra Elston
/ Peter Forsling
/ Megan Hall
/ Chris Hedges
/ Wally Hidinger
/ Ron Horner
/ David L. Huft
/ Ahmad Jaber
/ Moe Jamshidi
/ Crawford Jencks
/ Christopher Jenks
/ Barnie P. Jones
/ Said Kass
/ Cameron Kergaye
/ Ken Kobetsky
/ Jake Kononov
/ Sandra Larson
/ Natassja Linzau
/ Wes Lum
/ Scott McClure
/ Timothy McDowell
/ Dirk Nyland
/ Leni Oman
/ Larry Orcutt
/ Ned Parrish
/ Michael Patritch
/ Clayton Schumaker
/ RAC Secretary
/ Sue Sillick
/ Roger Skirrow
/ Amy Starr
/ Dave Stearns
/ Mick Syslo
/ Bill Zaccagnino
/ Pete Zaniewski