The Community Services Department of Washoe County is seeking public feedback on the priority of numerous road maintenance categories through a newly implemented budget simulator.
Washoe County Roads maintains and preserves the transportation and drainage infrastructure for more than 1,000 miles of paved and gravel roads from the Oregon border to and including Incline Village. This simulator will help residents understand the challenges and tough choices that Washoe County Roads faces when developing the budget.
“At Washoe County we value public input and always strive to be transparent with budgeting and the prioritizing of projects,” said Eric Crump, CSD director of operations. “This new tool will allow residents to see the choices we face when building the budget, and provide insight on what their priorities for maintenance are.”
This newly developed tool allows the public to simulate and submit spending choices on pavement, storm water, snow and ice control, and traffic sign and stripe. The simulator balances cost, mandated policy and asset conditions to build an annual budget without going over budget and causing a need to increase taxes. Toggle the percentage of budget spent on each area of maintenance, and create your own budget recommendation. The recommendation can be submitted to Washoe County, which will consider recommendations as it builds its budget for the next fiscal year. The percentages that can be adjusted are percentage spent on pavement, storm water, snow and ice control, and traffic sign and stripe.
The challenge that Washoe County Road Maintenance faces when creating an acceptable budget is the numerous policies that must be met and not exceeded. These policies are linked within the simulator and can be further researched by users.
The simulator can be found on the Washoe County website here.
