Greetings Team ODOT,

As we strive to achieve our mission of building and maintaining our transportation system, we should always be looking at ODOT’s operations to find better ways to conduct business and serve our customers. While small changes in structure, process, and capabilities have become a routine part of our culture, major changes are sometimes necessary to advance our ability to carry out our mission and to maximize efficiency and customer service. Today, we are excited to announce a major change in our district boundaries that will position ODOT to better serve our customers now and in the future.

What’s changing?

Six counties will move to new districts:

• Defiance County: District 1 → District 2
• Mercer & Auglaize Counties: District 7 → District 1
• Greene & Preble Counties: District 8 → District 7
• Fayette County: District 6 → District 8
  
  

Why is ODOT doing this?

There are three main reasons:

1. More efficient regional operations Some counties with geographic similarities are currently split between different districts. This can make maintenance work, planning, and coordination harder than it needs to be. For example, the Dayton region is split between districts 7 & 8 today. With this change, those counties will be in the same district, making it easier to plan and work together.
2. Better coordination with local partners ODOT works closely with regional planning organizations, economic development partners, schools, and the media. Many of these groups cover multiple counties and districts. The new district boundaries better line up those organizations within our districts, which helps communication and coordination.
3. Better balance of work across districts Some districts handle much heavier workloads than others based on their urban, suburban or rural nature. While this change won’t make everything perfectly even, it does help spread the workload more equally by shifting territory from districts with a higher workload to those with more capacity.

When does this happen?

• Counties will officially move to their new districts the week of April 5.
• This is just the first step. The full transition will take many months, and in some cases years.
• Operating budgets and work plans for FY27 will be built using the new district boundaries.
• The capital program will take years to fully transition as it will cause undue difficulty to change project personnel for projects currently in development or construction in most cases.

What should employees expect?

Please know that the ODOT leadership team understands that a change of this magnitude will bring a mix of anticipation, uncertainty, and unease to many of our employees, especially those directly affected by this change. While we believe strongly that this realignment is the right thing to do to maintain our high standard of customer service, there will naturally be many questions about how this change will be implemented and what the impacts will be. While we will have answers to some of those questions it is important to understand that many unknows exist and will continue to exist for some time as we work through this process together. We ask for your patience, guidance, and to continue our standard of excellence as we work through the challenges ahead.

View the Districts Realignments 2026 Frequently Asked Questions PDF

The new ODOT Districts Map which will officially go into effect the week of April. 5, 2026