By Karon Wiedemann
Aviation Division
FY 2000 is here and it comes to state government even sooner than January. On Sept. 1, 1999, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) began the new fiscal year 2000, and with the new year comes your opportunity to participate in the FY 2000 Routine Airport Maintenance Program (RAMP). By now most of you are familiar with this maintenance program for publicly-owned airports in the Texas Airport System. If, however, you are new and need additional information on the basics of the program, please call Kathy Griffin at the Aviation Division at 512/416-4522, so she can fill you in.
For those familiar with the program, be sure to contact your RAMP coordinator in the district and get a new scope of services ready for the FY 2000 year. The program remains the same as the previous year – the state will match your maintenance funds 50/50 up to $20,000 in state dollars. You can use available district forces for the scope of services or you can use your local contracts for eligible items of work.
We hope FY 2000 will bring many new RAMP projects and encourage you to contact your District RAMP coordinator. If you don’t remember who your contact person is, call Kathy. She is here to help make RAMP work for you.
As an additional note on RAMP, recent survey results compiled by the Texas Transportation Institute show that airport sponsors believe the program is beneficial. While there are always a few problems that have to be dealt with, the survey showed that a great majority of the users of the program are happy with the
services and financial assistance. If you are experiencing problems, if you have any good news to share, or if you have ideas for improvement, please call Kathy. We want this program to be successful and we’ll listen to whatever you have to say.
