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140 The Practice of Local Government want to take political action; it also provides an opportunity to coordinate O projects,that will be built by different units in the same-part of the community. ', Some-communities have organized intergovernmental bonding committees that attempt to keep each other informed as to bonds that-.will be issued by the gov- , -ernments involved. This is a particularly important step, because when a com- munity-'s bonds are rated by investment services the amount of overlapping debt on taxpayers is a relevant factor in the safety of.the security. State and federal grants-in-aid present another set of-problems for local gov- ernment. While local governments react favorably,to state and federal programs - .-that can help them undertake capital improvements projects. there are some problems that require careful attention from local officials and planners dealing with capital investments. One such problem is that grant programs can distort economic choices and can skew local decision making. Federal money may be available for certain capital improvements but not for others. The tendency is for local governments to choose those projects that can be funded in part through federal or state pro- grams. Capital facilities that do not have a grant program to support them may go begging. The grant formula for the balance between federal or state and local cost can also skew decision making. For example, for more than a decade the federal urban mass transportation system program provided that the federal government would pay up to 80 percent of the cost of a transit capital program. On the other hand, an interstate highway going through a locality would be funded by a federal formula that provided for the federal government to pay 90 percent of a highway project. Clearly, it can cost local government more to choose transit instead of highways. The U.S. Congress's cycle of providing authorizations and appropriations or grant-in-aid programs can also be troublesome to local government. For example, O Congress may pass a new grant program with a span of five years and with a total authorization of a lump sum or up to certain amounts for each year of the program. However, until Congress appropriates the money for a particular pro- gram in a particular year, that money is not available. Moreover, appropriations may be below annual authorization levels. To add to the misery of local govern- ment financial planners Congress also has the habit of appropriating money sev- eral months into a fiscal year, and then local governments are forced to try to carry out programs and spend money designed for a twelve month period in,for example, seven or eight months. During the 1950s and the 1960s the number of categorical grant programs— that is programs for a single function or program—grew to the point where fed- eral, state,and local officials realized that coordinating multiple programs at the local level is a serious problem. Two of the most significant pieces of federal legislation—general revenue sharing and the Community Development Block Grant program—have enabled local governments to have a far greater voice in spending federal money. Moreover,the flow of funds has become more regular, thus allowing better programming of capital investments. These federal pro- grams have also been supplemented by other funds for public works such as funds administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic De- velopment Administration. A significant development in the area of federal transportation policy has(as mentioned earlier)enabled local officials to choose between federal aid for mass transit or for highways. The local CIP process is also very heavily influenced by other types of im- pacts of federal programs. For example, as both major metropolitan areas and small communities have discovered, environmental standards for water quality management have resulted in the requirement that-local government agencies spend enormous amounts of money to help maintain and improve water quality. O New and major improvements in sewage treatment plants and the construction of major trunk sewer lines may require local communities to postpone other