The authors wish to thank the many people who contributed to the development and production of this report.
We are deeply grateful to the 28 members and eight advisory members of the NCSL-AASHTO Joint Project Oversight Committee (also known as the NCSL-AASHTO Task Force). This group oversaw project activities; helped define the scope, content and methodology of the report; and offered in-depth feedback on various project drafts. Special gratitude is extended to the committee's co-chairs, Joseph Erskine of the Kansas Department of Transportation and Jennifer Jones of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, for their leadership, engagement and full support of this effort. (Appendix A contains a list of committee members.)
We also wish to thank our partners at the AASHTO Center for Excellence in Project Finance, who funded and collaborated on this project. Joung Lee, in particular, offered indispensable assistance, encouragement and thoughtful guidance throughout the year-long research process, and continues to provide invaluable leadership in making the findings accessible to a broad audience. We also thank Jack Basso, Wendy Franklin and Bud McDonald at AASHTO for their help and support.
It would have been impossible to produce this report without the cooperation of the more than two hundred state legislators, legislative staff and DOT personnel across the country who shared information and insights with us through detailed responses to our original surveys and fact-checking contributions on earlier drafts. We thank them for providing the substantial state-by-state information that is at the foundation of this project. (Appendix B contains a list of responding organizations.) We are also grateful to the Transportation Research Board Taxation and Finance Committee for allowing us to present our initial findings and receive feedback from transportation stakeholders at the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2011.
We are truly indebted to Senator Paula Dockery (Fla.), Representative Linda Harper-Brown (Texas) and Senator Bruce Starr (Ore.), who shared their knowledge and perspectives in interviews and conversations with us and inspired much of this report. We are especially grateful to Senator Dockery for her insightful presentation concerning legislative oversight of state DOTs at the NCSL Fall Forum in 2008.
We further thank Julia Pulidindi and Leslie Wollack at the National League of Cities for organizing and facilitating an informative conference call with city officials in October 2010 to discuss state-local issues, and especially thank call participants Alderman Robert J. Bauman (Milwaukee, Wis.), Councilman Claude Mattox (Phoenix, Ariz.), Mayor Oscar Trevino (North Richland Hills, Texas) and then-Councilmember Steve Elkins (Bloomington, Minn.) for their contributions.
We extend our special gratitude to our NCSL colleagues Bob Boerner, Chris Csanyi, Brenda Erickson, Rise Jones, Arturo Pérez and Gene Rose, who generously gave of their time and expertise in many areas to enrich this project. We also thank Leann Stelzer for editing and formatting the report, and intern Cortney Green for her research assistance. Thanks go to Paul Saieg for his help with compiling survey data.