TxDOT’s Magee and Guzman earn 2014 AASHTO President’s Transportation Award
Written by admin, Jan 13, 2015, Comments Off
Courtesy Raul Leal,
LAREDO, TX – This year’s national winners of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) President’s Transportation Award for Administration are Danny Magee, P.E. and Rafael Guzman, P.E. of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Laredo District for their design of the state transportation department’s statewide category 105 and 144 Maintenance Strategies Budget Tool.
Both were recognized nationally at the 2014 AASHTO awards program held November 23, 2014 in Charlotte, North Carolina where awards recognized individuals and teams who have performed an exemplary service that benefits transportation regionally and nationally.
Maintenance Strategy 105 is the operations budget (salaries, fuel, utilities, materials, etc.). Maintenance Strategy 144 is the contract services budget (letting of maintenance-related contracts).
These two strategies comprise one-third of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) annual expenditure. A portion of these two budgets is allocated to several divisions and all of TxDOT’s 25 districts. Each division and district is responsible for tracking their expenses to ensure that at the end of the fiscal year the difference between allocated budget and actual expenses is as close to zero as possible, without going over the budget which is challenging due to the constant changing needs of highway maintenance.
Magee and Guzman, both professional engineers, designed the 105 and 144 Budget Tool to monitor forecasted and actual maintenance budgets; to ensure every dollar is allocated to maintenance activities for the highways of Texas; and to provide an easy and comprehensive method for reporting on these efforts to administration. The tool was deployed statewide in March 2010, and been in use ever since.
In September 2012, TxDOT mandated that this budget tool be incorporated in COMPASS, a statewide application that includes all maintenance functions. The Budget Tool is used statewide to serve as a backup system to COMPASS while the transition is completed. Full transition of the budget tool into COMPASS was completed in September 2013.
