DiscretionaryGrants

The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) includes discretionary grants that can be administered in one of two ways:

Administered by local governments directly
Local municipalities can petition state Departments of Transportation to administer the grant(s) on their behalf.

For Georgia municipalities that request the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to administer their grants, GDOT has implemented a request process. Once municipality requests have been reviewed and approved, the GDOT-administered Discretionary Grant projects will be regarded as normal federal-aid process projects and will follow the GDOT Plan Development Process.

Requests from Local Governments

With the implementation of the new federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), there are discretionary grants that can be administered by the local governments directly or local municipalities can petition the State Department of Transportation to administer the grant(s).

The Department is implementing a request process for local governments to request the grants be administered by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) as normal federal-aid process projects, following the Plan Development Process.

If a Local Government is interested in making such a request, the request should be sent to the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation outlining why the grant should be administered by GDOT instead of directly by the local award recipient. Additionally, the Request to Administer a Local Federal Discretionary Grant Checklist should be filled out and submitted with the request to provide the Department with additional information to consider in making final decisions on requests.

Please note that oversight funding will be necessary for the Department to administer the grant. Additionally, Locally Administered Projects (LAP) certification is strongly encouraged.

Memo from GDOT
Chief Engineer