Last month, we wrote about a letter we and our allies had sent requesting a $1 billion augmentation from the General Fund surplus. Since then, Governor Newsom proposed in his May budget revision, and the State Legislature has approved, a $500 million augmentation. While this is not as much as we hoped, it is a significant boost to the program, and more than was available in Cycle 5 originally. Once the augmentation is formalized, the California Transportation Commission plans to announce the additional projects it will fund in August (the funds will go exclusively to projects applied for and scored in Cycle 5). Augmentation funds will be divided 50%-40%-10% between the Statewide, MPO and Small Urban/Rural components of Cycle 5. By our calculations, the funds should allow all applications that scored in the mid to high 80’s (out of 100 points) to receive funding, in addition to projects that benefit from the augmentation at the MPO level.
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