The United States must repair and replace trillions of dollars in aging public infrastructure. Costs are dramatically rising as governments cope with accelerating needs brought on by climate change and increasingly severe weather.

The Volcker Alliance and the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota (UMN), with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, are partnering to help states quantify infrastructure maintenance gaps and improve practices to close these funding gaps.

The Infrastructure Deferred Maintenance Project builds on a previous collaboration with the University of Minnesota that resulted in a comprehensive analysis of the issues plaguing our national public infrastructure, America’s Trillion Dollar Repair Bill. Based on the findings of that 2019 issue paper, we selected six states–Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, New York, and Tennessee–for an in-depth exploration of current infrastructure maintenance gaps and investment needs. We will supplement these case studies with surveys of key stakeholders in state budget offices and transportation departments in all fifty states.

The project will culminate in a comprehensive dataset, report, and toolkit. The toolkit will provide implementation advice for state leaders to manage maintenance deficits and investment needs, and budget for accumulated deferred infrastructure maintenance costs.