Sources of Matching Funds
The matching funds used along byways have come from a variety of sources. Generally speaking, the three categories are local, State and Federal funds.[1] Table 4 and Figure 3 illustrate the distribution of matching funds across the three main categories in each of the years from 1999 to 2006. Across these eight years, almost 75 percent of the matching funds came from non-Federal and non-State sources. States provided 21 percent of the total matching funds; and the Federal government, through special land management agency provisions, provided 5 percent.
| Matching Funds | Federal | State | Other | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match % by year |
Matching Funds | Match % by year |
Matching Funds | Match % by year |
Matching Funds | ||
| 1999 | $67,202 | 0.5% | $18,350 | 0.1% | $14,146,389 | 99.4% | $14,231,941 |
| 2000 | $65,676 | 0.3% | $52,232 | 0.3% | $20,308,631 | 99.4% | $20,426,539 |
| 2001 | $2,774,376 | 12.7% | $4,243,930 | 19.5% | $14,789,584 | 67.8% | $21,807,890 |
| 2002 | $1,337,210 | 11.3% | $3,689,913 | 31.1% | $6,832,223 | 57.6% | $11,859,346 |
| 2003 | $141,235 | 1.0% | $6,030,411 | 44.7% | $7,328,514 | 54.3% | $13,500,160 |
| 2004 | $395,670 | 4.6% | $3,952,343 | 45.7% | $4,303,113 | 49.7% | $8,651,126 |
| 2005 | $611,960 | 4.1% | $2,980,833 | 20.0% | $11,320,017 | 75.9% | $14,912,810 |
| 2006 | $715,418 | 4.2% | $4,790,688 | 28.2% | $11,482,901 | 67.6% | $16,989,007 |
| Total | $6,108,747 | 5.0% | $25,758,700 | 21.0% | $90,511,372 | 74.0% | $122,378,819 |
Figure 3 : Matching Funds by Year and Type
There were variations in that pattern on a year–to-year basis. In some years, the Federal portion rose to between 11% and 13%. In the same manner, during the last several years, the State matching sources provided between 20% and 45% of the total matching dollars leveraged by the National Scenic Byways Program grants. Local sources provided 99% of matching funds in 1999 and 2000. That figure has since fluctuated between 50% and 75% per year.
Matching funds by federal agencies
From 1999 through 2006, federal agencies other than FHWA provided a total of $6.93 million in funding to match National Scenic Byways grant funds. The primary agencies involved to date are the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Land Management.
The U.S.D.A. Forest Service has accounted for 63% of the total federal agency matching funds and providing over $4.3 million toward total project costs for byways where the USFS was a partner.
| Year | USFS | NPS | FWS | BIA | BLM | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | $48,522 | $48,522 | |||||
| 2000 | $64,676 | $8,500 | $73,176 | ||||
| 2001 | $1,743,376 | $20,000 | $1,000,000 | $13,000 | $2,776,376 | ||
| 2002 | $972,950 | $400,000 | $74,063 | $1,447,013 | |||
| 2003 | $66,383 | $34,655 | $1,000 | $8,794 | $500 | $111,332 | |
| 2004 | $361,140 | $350,000 | $200,000 | $911,140 | |||
| 2005 | $532,760 | $257,450 | $5,000 | $45,000 | $840,210 | ||
| 2006 | $550,014 | $84,904 | $24,250 | $10,500 | $53,700 | $723,368 | |
| Total | $4,339,821 | $1,147,009 | $1,030,250 | $10,500 | $128,994 | $274,563 | $6,931,137 |
Figure 4: Matching Funds by Federal Agencies
Directions for the Future
The National Scenic Byways Program has leveraged significantly higher amounts of match funding than the minimum 20 percent required. This has resulted in a much larger impact for the Program. The nature of projects with matches exceeding 20 percent should be examined more carefully in order to provide ideas and guidance to local groups on maximizing the number of financial partners and match levels for all projects.
It should, however, also be confirmed that these higher match levels were the result of successful local fund raising and financing, and not the result of local groups receiving fewer grant funds than expected. In other words, groups might have prepared an application, assembled the matches in preparation of a full grant award, and then found that their actual award was less than expected. The result would be match amounts exceeding the 20 percent level.
- Since TEA-21, under Title 23 U.S.C. Section 162(f), in the case of any scenic byway project along a public road that provides access to or within Federal or Indian land, a Federal land management agency may use funds authorized for use by the agency as the non-Federal share. ^ back
