December 4, 2021- The recent endorsement by the Florida Association of Counties for the creation of the National Infrastructure Bank as outlined in HR3339, contains important analyses and reasoning behind their Board's adoption of the resolution.

In the background section, the endorsement states in part: "Our counties are not provided adequate resources by the state to address the needs for maintenance of roads, of schools, or to address the growing issues with sea level rise and extreme weather events and effects on stormwater systems, wastewater treatment and water reclamation facilities. This problem is becoming dire in many counties, and they are not able to maintain the assets they have invested in."

In the analysis section appears the following: "This legislation would provide counties with infrastructure funding for public transportation, roads/bridges, broadband, water and wastewater facilities. The proposed bank would provide up to an estimated $5 trillion to cities, counties, regions, and states to address infrastructure needs to be paid back at an interest rate less than the rate of inflation. There would be the ability to bundle projects, and a portion of the money would also be put towards a grant program for the most challenged communities. Our county is between $600M and $700M behind on just road maintenance. We are able to budget, in a best-case scenario, $6M a year..."

The full endorsement statement is available here.