Yes, that’s billion . . . with a “b” (Richmond Times-Dispatch):
The Virginia Department of Transportation left more than $900 million in maintenance funds unspent over the last two fiscal years because of “burdensome internal processes and financial controls,” an independent audit of the state highway department shows.
The audit by the Richmond-based accounting firm of Cherry Bekaert & Holland found that about $390 million went unspent in fiscal 2009 and $529 million in fiscal 2010.
Total unspent balance: $919 million - or nearly 30% of VDOT’s entire annual budget (VA DOB).
This comes, of course, as Kaine was closing down rest stops and screaming for tax increases – ostensibly for roads.
Meanwhile, as the RTD story makes clear, most of the backlog was during the Kaine years.
According to Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton, the Six-Year road plan could get a extra $1.5 billion (the above money included) as a result of what was found in the audit.
Cross-posted to VV and On the Spot
Let’s assume this is true and as bad as it sounds for the sake of argument except that you compare it to annual revenues instead of the fact that this money is accumulated but let’s not quibble over petty misrepresentations between friends.
How much of this is Spotsylvania County’s “share”?
There are 133 counties, cities and towns in Virginia so let’s see 900,000,000/133= 67 million dollars.
Now that’s NOT CHUMP CHANGE.
NOW.. that we’ve got that straight – how about telling me how much of the 67 million Spotsylvania will actually get – and when?
Do they say the money will be divided up and rebated to the counties.. how much and when or is this just more smoke & mirrors politics?
how much will Spotsy get – per year in the future? let’s see 529 million in 2010 ..divided by 133 = 40 million.
well 40 million dollars would be a BIG DEAL.
We could make a substantial down payment on a new interchange near Massaponax with that kind of money.
Let me know when you find out how much Spotsy’s share will be.
thanks!
They do not have a localities breakdown. I’ll let you know when they do.
What else would the RTD conclude? Certanily nothing that might favor democrats….last month, McDonnell said the state would fund new transportation projects of $629 million from stimulus funds and not give credit to these funds on the signs along the road. I wonder how much of these new found dollars are in that number?
This may not be as bad as it sounds. The Feds have a deal called “bonus obligation” and what it boils down to is that many of the states, and Virginia is one of them, cannot get funds programmed and obligated before they expire and the Feds pull the money back. It’s sort of like the shovel ready idea. You (VDOT) propose a project to be started and underway …and then finished on a timeline and if you run into obstacles… bad weath.. condemnation.. unexpected soil or other engineering conditions – the money can be “lost”.
so I strongly suspect this is money that VDOT is “hoarding” by bad accounting… More than likely this is stranded money due to the conditions described above or sometimes one project ends up costing more than expected and money is “borrowed” from other projects – that cannot go forward until other funds are freed up.
Programming capital projects like roads (and schools and other infrastructure and buildings) can be not an easy task..and when you are juggling literally hundreds of projects … stuff happens…
This is why I am asking the “bottom line” question. It’s easy to go poking around under the covers at VDOT. Virtually every new Governor does some version of that because VDOT is a large, lumbering.. almost moribund at times – agency (used to be the largest before corrections overtook them) .. anyhow VDOT is an easy target and most govs can’t resist.
I’m sure you remember George Allen firing a bunch of VDOT folks – that then had to be hired back as higher paid consultants.
so what is the bottom line of all of this “new found” money?
will it translate into more projects and if so how much and what projects?
If we don’t hear that- this is going to deteriorate back to little more than a Press Event ….
I’m not impressed with Mr. McDonnell so far to be honest.
He hasn’t broke anything like Gilmore and Allen did – YET – but he seems to have a propensity for doing things like claiming surpluses because he deferred pension funding then talk about selling ABC and giving the money to – NOPE.. not to pay the pension fund back .. but to ..guess who.. ?? well none other than the agency that he says is mishandling money.. huh?
say that again? VDOT is going to get the ABC money because a audit determined that they had money they had not spent yet?
this don’t sound right to me guys.
tell me how I got this twisted.
$500 million in one year sounds like a lot – and it’s not chump change but to put this in perspective… for one county – it probably amounts to about 5 million dollars.
new roads cost 10 million a mile and up and a new traffic signal can cost 500K to a million.
it’s not chump change but it’s no where near enough to address the transportation needs in Va.
The Fredericksburg area along – has more than $500 million in needs and no funding for them.
The Va gas tax funds only about 1/3 of VDOT’s budget these days – about 900 million. Not well known… VDOT get 1/2% of the sales tax and that amounts to 500 million annually. The rest comes from taxes on new cars – and our share of the Federal Gas Tax – which Virginia has used to build new projects but now has to use it more and more for maintenance.
What’s really broke in my view is that it is too easy for developers to get involved in road building decisions. There are way too many people involved in the development community in the CTB.
It’s always about priorities when dealing with budgets and when developers end up helping to set transportation priorities.. we sometimes end up with money not put where it ought to be put.
Headline: ” Saslaw not very impressed with VDOT audit….”
” Until my colleagues and I learn more about the details in the audit, I am hesitant to affirm that there are in fact substantial new dollars for transportation. Furthermore, many of the funding recommendations apparently fail to acknowledge the statutory formula through which maintenance dollars are currently allocated, a process which ensures that all areas of the state receive necessary funding for the upkeep of transportation assets. When available balances are “redeployed”, as the Governor suggests, that may mean that some districts are winners and some are losers. Again, we need to see the details. And while I would be pleased to see additional projects go forward, we must understand that these are largely one-time resources. This audit demonstrates that the Commonwealth has yet to face the fact that it lacks a comprehensive long-term plan for solving its transportation problem.”
http://hrblogs.typepad.com/the_shad_plank/2010/09/saslaw-not-very-impressed-with-vdot-audit.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/dailypress/the_shad_plank+(The+Shad+Plank)
or: http://goo.gl/8cX9
Virginia is one of the few states that provides maintenance for its entire highway system…..it is likely that some of the hoarded money is for that!! Also, the bean-counters simply dont let stuff like this happen, and McDonnell was also wrong on his plan to start tolls on the interstates……sorry folks……..he will have a retraction by the end of the month!!
Virginia is but one of 4 states in the country where the state DOT maintains local roads including subdivision roads. In these other 46 states, subdivisions have HOAs for their roads (and pay to maintain them separately) and/or the county has a separate tax for county roads.
This does 3 bad thing in Va.
1. – taxpayers in Va pay far less for transportation than folks in other states which ravages VDOT’s finances.
2. – Trying to maintain the 3rd largest road system in the country makes for very difficult programming and coordination.
3. – and most important – because Va Counties are not responsible for coordinating land-use and transportation, they make many land-use decisions without regard to the transportation consequences – and blame VDOT for the traffic mess.
McDonnell … COULD HAVE addressed these fundamental flaws in our system and told citizens the truth about these thing – and reform them.
2 counties and all the cities and towns in Va are responsible for their local roads and it has a tremendous impact on development decisions because they ARE responsible for the transportation impacts.
And because local tax dollars are used – decisions are more frugal and more targeted at true need rather than “economic” development which is what you get when your money is essentially in slush fund that developers can access and use to benefit themselves.
The “audit” smells a LOT like scapegoating that will end up with nothing different other than some poor schmucks getting fired for effect.
In terms of transparency and accountability, for your own locality – tell me how much gas tax your county generates – and how much you get back in operations, maintenance and improvements.
You don’t know – right? Why?
you know how much sales tax your locality generates and how much you get back but you don’t know this for the gas tax.
McDonnell could fix this. He could make the money more accountable. We would know, for instance how much money is not being spent in the Fredericksburg District.
What it sounds like is that McDonnell is going to grab up all the unspent money from all 9 VDOT districts – and reallocate it …NOT the way the state code calls for.
That’s arrogant and dumb and does not address the more fundamental problem which is why the state has 9 separate transportation districts when we also have MPOs – whose boundaries do not align with the VDOT districts – which were drawn in 1922 according to Congressional district boundaries.
The current VDOT districts are anachronisms that do not align according to how VDOT has grown.
There is a LOT of REFORM that COULD TAKE PLACE and is needed but what McDonnell is doing is basically scapegoating for effect – not digging into the real issues that need reform.
JLARC has previously identified many of these areas including the district boundaries issues so there is a roadmap already in hand but McDonnel is either clueless or he has got other fish to fry.
Larry,
FWIW, we have common ground on the bizarre nature of VDOT’s reach. I remain perplexed as to why so many local and state politicians are determined to have their constituents pay for my subdivision streets.
GAWD….DJ… this is getting scary.
did you get the part about the last time the 9 district boundaries were decided? in 1922 and drawn to coincide with Congressional boundaries?
JLARC pointed this out several years ago and specifically made mention that the VDOT districts were not matching up with the MPO/MSA urbanizing areas.
That doesn’t make sense either, but I suspect that will remain in place thanks to pressure from rural legislators. Shouldn’t, though.
Well – the truth is – we don’t know. We do not know at the Fredericksburg District level how much money was not spent and held in reserve – because we have no transparency and thus no accountability for the gas taxes we generate – and how much we get allocated for maintenance, operations and improvements.
That’s a BIG PROBLEM – ESPECIALLY when we talk about the lack of funding for transportation.
Because we don’t know – 80% of people are opposed to an increase in the gas tax which has not increased in 25 years and has not kept up with simple inflation.
I bet other than some legislators and VDOT finance people – no local legislators or citizens know how much gas tax we generate and how much we receive in allocations – much less whether VDOT Fredericksburg is holding back money.
Geez……..you guys are way above my grade level in this discussion ..
both of you all are wrong…end of discussion
Doesnt anyone think this is a lot of bs……???VDOT left $1.0 floating around? I just wonder how much of this is stimulus funds????
[...] nominee would show the Democrats’ concern for transportation quite like the fellow who left nearly $1 billion in VDOT money bottled up while he demanded tax increases for roads year after [...]