Special to the Herald
SPRINGFIELD – Phil Kieffer has worked his way into the front seat of a vehicle designed to improve America’s transportation system.
Kieffer, Effingham County’s District 5 commissioner, was notified July 10 that he has been appointed to the National Association of Counties’ (NACo) Transportation Policy Steering Committee. The committee engages in all matters pertaining to federal transportation legislation, funding and regulation, and their impacts on county government.
“I had expressed an interest in being a part of something (for NACo) and that’s more or less where I landed,” Kieffer said July 11. “I was particularly interested in transportation.”
Kieffer’s NACo membership will begin Aug. 1. He will have committee voting rights at the organization’s annual conference in Philadelphia in July 2025.
“It’ll probably take that year to really learn and understand what exactly we will be doing and what our role is (as a committee),” Kieffer said. “I’m up for it but I’ve got to get my feet wet on a national level.”
NACo believes that the nation’s transportation system is a vital component in building and sustaining communities, moving people and goods, and developing competitive economies at local and regional levels, and on a global scale. It contends that counties should be recognized as major owners of transportation infrastructure and provided funding and authority that adequately reflect their role in the transportation system.
“We’ve got to tap into resources at every level,” Kieffer said. “We can leave no stone unturned. You’ve got to be in the game to understand it.”
Counties own 45 percent of the nation’s roads and 39 percent of its bridges and are involved with more than a third of the transit systems and airports in the United States.
Founded in 1935, NACo unites America's 3,069 county governments. Its mission is to promote excellence in public service, foster county solutions and innovation, encourage intergovernmental collaboration, and provide value-added services to save counties and taxpayers money.
It currently has more than 1,100 individual county-elected and appointed officials from every region of the country represented on 10 policy steering committees, ad hoc and standing committees, caucuses and task forces.
