A Transportation Safety Planning Tool for the City of Ames, August 2011

The historically-reactive approach to identifying safety problems and mitigating them involves selecting black spots or hot spots by ranking locations based on crash frequency and severity. The approach focuses mainly on the corridor level without taking the exposure rate (vehicle miles traveled) and socio-demographics information of the study area, which are very important in the transportation planning process, into consideration. A larger study analysis unit at the Transportation Analysis Zone (TAZ) level or the network planning level should be used to address the needs of development of the community in the future and incorporate safety into the long-range transportation planning process. In this study, existing planning tools (such as the PLANSAFE models presented in NCHRP Report 546) were evaluated for forecasting safety in small and medium-sized communities, particularly as related to changes in socio-demographics characteristics, traffic demand, road network, and countermeasures. The research also evaluated the applicability of the Empirical Bayes (EB) method to network-level analysis. In addition, application of the United States Road Assessment Program (usRAP) protocols at the local urban road network level was investigated. This research evaluated the applicability of these three methods for the City of Ames, Iowa. The outcome of this research is a systematic process and framework for considering road safety issues explicitly in the small and medium-sized community transportation planning process and for quantifying the safety impacts of new developments and policy programs. More specifically, quantitative safety may be incorporated into the planning process, through effective visualization and increased awareness of safety issues (usRAP), the identification of high-risk locations with potential for improvement, (usRAP maps and EB), countermeasures for high-risk locations (EB before and after study and PLANSAFE), and socio-economic and demographic induced changes at the planning-level (PLANSAFE).

Audit report on the Iowa Water Pollution Control Works Financing Program and the Iowa Drinking Water Facilities Financing Program, joint programs of the Iowa Finance Authority and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for the year ended June 30, 2011

Audit report on the Iowa Water Pollution Control Works Financing Program and the Iowa Drinking Water Facilities Financing Program, joint programs of the Iowa Finance Authority and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for the year ended June 30, 2011

Iowa Disaster Recovery Tabletop Exercise After Action Report/Improvement Plan, August 2010

On June 24, 2010, the Rebuild Iowa Office (RIO) held a discussion-based tabletop exercise for the purpose of creating a framework to support disaster recovery coordination within the State of Iowa. The exercise design team was composed of RIO and Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division (HSEMD) staff. Initial planning for the Iowa Disaster Recovery Tabletop Exercise began in February 2010, in response to recommendations by the Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission and the Rebuild Iowa Coordinating Council. Both of these groups were organized in direct response to the 2008 Iowa disasters to help establish a path for Iowa’s recovery and monitor progress toward meeting established goals. Recommendations included formalizing the responsibilities of the RIO as they relate to 2008 disasters, capturing lessons learned, and determining what a recovery model should look like for Iowa’s future disasters.

Audit report on Mid-Iowa School Improvement Consortium, Carlisle, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2011

Audit report on Mid-Iowa School Improvement Consortium, Carlisle, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2011

Data Download, Building Better Programs, Iowa Department of Corrections, August 2011

Beginning in 2006, the Iowa Department of Corrections embarked on a systematic offender program audit at each of the state’s institutions and community-based corrections agencies, the purpose of which was to determine each program’s effectiveness as supported by results and research (evidence-based practices). Those programs demonstrating success were maintained, and all others either modified to comply with evidence-based practices or replaced by programming that did.

Council Bluffs Interstate System Improvement Project Tier 2, Segment 3 Pottawatomie County, Iowa Environmental Assessment, March 2011

This Tier 2 Environmental Assessment (EA) presents the results of studies and analyses conducted to determine the potential impacts of proposed improvements in Segment 3 of the Council Bluffs Interstate System (CBIS) in the Council Bluffs metropolitan area. This document is tiered to the Tier 1 Draft and Final Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) that evaluated impacts of the overall CBIS Improvements Project, which includes five segments of independent utility1 This EA on Segment 3 of the Project is divided into the following sections: and encompasses 18 mainline miles of Interstate and 14 interchanges along Interstate 80 (I-80), Interstate 29 (I-29), and Interstate 480 (I-480). More information about the tiering process is found below under Project Background. • Section 1 provides background information on the Project and discusses the relationship between the earlier Tier 1 EIS and this Tier 2 EA. It also discusses the proposed action and the area studied, the purpose of the Project, and the need for the Project based on transportation problems that currently exist or are expected in the future. • Section 2, Alternatives, identifies the range of alternatives considered for Segment 3 to address the transportation problems identified in Section 1. It also identifies the alternatives retained for further study in this EA and the preferred Segment 3 alternative. • Section 3, Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences, describes the general environment for each resource affected by the proposed improvements. It also describes the potential environmental impacts of the Segment 3 Project and methods to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts. • Section 4, Disposition, lists the agencies and organizations that will receive copies of this EA and the locations at which this EA will be available for public review. • Section 5, Comments and Coordination, summarizes the agency coordination and public involvement efforts in conjunction with the Segment 3 Project. • Section 6, Conclusion and Recommendation, summarizes resource impacts. • Section 7, References, lists the sources cited in this EA. For Segment 3, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) determined that an EA is the appropriate level of Tier 2 study to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements. The primary purpose of an EA is to clearly establish the significance of a project’s environmental impacts. That analysis is included in this document.

2013 - 2017 Iowa Transportation Improvement Program,

This document describes planned investments in Iowa’s multimodal transportation system including aviation, transit, railroads, trails, and highways. A large part of funding available for highway programming comes from the federal government. Accurately estimating future federal funding levels is dependent on having a multiyear federal transportation authorization bill in place. The most recent authorization, Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), expired September 30, 2009, and to date it has been extended nine times because a new authorization has not yet been enacted. The current extension will expire June 30, 2012.

Iowa Results First: Return on Investment for Corrections Programs - 2012, May 2012

The Iowa Department of Management requested the Iowa Department of Corrections to accept the Pew Center on the States’ invitation to be trained in assessing the return on investment to taxpayers from criminal justice programs utilized by the State of Iowa. Using the Results First model, a nationally recognized, peer-reviewed tool developed by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP), the Department of Corrections has calculated the rate of return on investment for Iowa adult offender programs for each program area included in the model.

Assessment of Medicaid and SCHIP Quality Improvement Activities for the State of Iowa, September, 2008

CMS has established the medicaid Quality Improvement which serves to fulfill the objectives of they Medicaid Quality goal established through the Federal Government Performance and Results At. One of the objectives of the goal calls for the Centers foe Medicare and Medicaid Services to work in partnership with State Medicaid Directors to develop a Nation Medicaid Quality Framework that will articulate broad principles and a common vision of quality for the program.

Audit report on the Iowa Water Pollution Control Works Financing Program and the Iowa Drinking Water Facilities Financing Program, joint programs of the Iowa Finance Authority and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for the year ended June 30, 2012

Audit report on the Iowa Water Pollution Control Works Financing Program and the Iowa Drinking Water Facilities Financing Program, joint programs of the Iowa Finance Authority and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for the year ended June 30, 2012

Audit report on Mid-Iowa School Improvement Consortium, Carlisle, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2012

Audit report on Mid-Iowa School Improvement Consortium, Carlisle, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2012

2014-2018 Iowa Transportation Improvement Program

This document describes planned investments in Iowa’s multimodal transportation system including aviation, transit, railroads, trails, and highways. A large part of funding available for highway programming comes from the federal government. Accurately estimating future federal funding levels is dependent on having a multiyear federal transportation authorization bill in place and having a sustainable and solvent federal Highway Trust Fund. The most recent federal authorization, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), will expire September 30, 2014. At the same time that MAP-21 expires and absent Congressional action, the federal Highway Trust Fund will no longer be able provide funding at current levels resulting in up to a 90 percent reduction in federal highway funding for federal fiscal year 2015. These two issues provide funding uncertainty with this program in fiscal years 2015 and beyond.

Youthful Offender Programs, 2008

This program is done by CJJP. The programs are sponsored by this department for is risk youths to keep them from making bad choices and give them a place to go.

A Sufficiency Rating System for Secondary Roads in Iowa, HR-264, Volume I, 1985

County engineers in Iowa face the dual problems of rapidly escalating costs and a decreasing rate of growth of revenues. Various priority systems are in use, ranking projects for inclusion in road improvement programs, but they generally have weaknesses when used to compare one project with another in a different location. The sufficiency rating system has proven to be a useful tool in developing a priority list of projects for primary road systems, but there are none currently in use for secondary road systems. The research reported here was undertaken to develop a sufficiency rating system which could be used for secondary roads in Iowa and to produce the necessary forms and instructions to aid county engineering personnel in their efforts to complete the ratings for roads within their county.