Modifying Local Agency Pavement Management System to Support Governmental Accounting Standards Board 34 Requirements

Abstract

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission pavement management system (MTC PMS) has been used by many cities and counties in the United States for more than 15 years. MTC PMS was evaluated to determine the extent to which the software can support the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 34 reporting requirements, established in 1999. A local agency PMS can take information from a pavement network database to produce useful reports, which can be utilized jointly with the information from other assets managed by an agency to support the requirements for a comprehensive asset management system and other reporting requirements. The objective of this study was to elaborate GASB 34 requirements for reporting infrastructure assets, examine the capabilities of MTC PMS in supporting those standard requirements, and recommend any modifications of MTC PMS needed to better support GASB 34. It is evident from the study that MTC PMS has the capability, to some extent, of supporting GASB 34 for reporting on a pavement network according to both the GASB 34 reporting methods: the depreciation method and the modified approach. It partially supports the prerequisites for using the modified approach, which require that the managing agency have an asset management system with certain designated characteristics. Some modifications of MTC PMS software were proposed to make this management system more effective as a tool supporting an asset management system and overall GASB 34 requirements.