MPO Policy and Procedures Manual - Indianapolis Metropolitan ...

Budgetary Process
Kevin Mayfield, Senior Planner (317) 327-5135
kmayfiel@indy.gov
Traffic count program oversight; highway performance monitoring system
(HPMS); Title VI coordination and oversight
Catherine Kostyn, Senior Planner (317) 327-5142
ckostyn@indy.gov
Travel demand modeling; geographic information systems technology; data
development
Catherine Schoenherr, Senior Planner (317) 327-5137
cschoenh@indy.gov
Transportation Improvement Program assistance and coordination
Jeremy Moore, Senior Planner (317) 327-5495
jmoore@indy.gov
Multi-modal planning and project management
Erika Hinshaw, Regional Planner (317) 327-5431
ehinshaw@indy.gov
Long-Range Transportation Plan assistance
The budget of the MPO Division is a component of the overall budget for the Department of
Metropolitan Development. The fiscal year runs from January to December. Divisional budgets
(including the MPO’s) typically start being prepared in May for the following fiscal year.
Departmental budgets are usually prepared by June, and presented to the Indianapolis City-
County Council for adoption by August or September.
Generally, there are two opportunities for fiscal amendments (i.e., amending the budget for a
current fiscal year), initiated in January and August. Each process takes approximately 4 weeks
to complete. The general policy is to minimize the number of fiscal amendments, although it is
conceded that such amendments are sometimes unavoidable. It should also be borne in mind
that the UPWP must be consistent with the annual budget, such that if the annual budget
changes, the UPWP also must be amended.
The UPWP ascribes budgetary line items for particular activities. It is possible to transfer funds
between line items, as long as the overall size of the budget is not affected. Again, substantial
changes should be reflected as amendments to the UPWP.
While local match appropriated for planning activities can be obligated across fiscal years,
federal PL monies cannot. PL contracts or activities that carry across from one year to the next
must therefore be obligated out of the grant from the second year. These surplus PL funds are
available in subsequent program years (see next paragraph), but recently, Indiana’s MPO
funding formula was amended to limit such carryovers to $200,000. An issue of considerable
import, then, is the minimization of end-of-year carryovers, such that federal PL monies remain
available to the region. Most of this burden lies on consultant-contracted studies (see the
“Project Management” section, Section 6, for more discussion). However, activity budgets may
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