Even as Northern Virginia officials are pining for more money to repair local roads, Virginia transportation officials said they may end the budget year in June 2012 with as much as $100 million in unspent highway funds. The state Department of Transportation reported the extra funds to the Commonwealth Transportation Board last week even as residents are complaining about potholes and crumbling lanes, especially in Fairfax County, where road maintenance has become a central issue in one supervisor’s re-election bid.
“If there’s available maintenance money, I can certainly give them a number of ideas on how they can spend it here,” said Fairfax Supervisor John Cook, who is running on a platform of “local control of local roads” that he promises would provide faster fixes to roads residents have been bemoaning.
VDOT Chief Financial Officer John Lawson said the $100 million it has this year is only a fraction of what it has retained in past years, an indication that VDOT is spending heavily on roads. The state ended the last two budget years with as much as $500 million in leftover highway funds, he said.
“Great efforts have been made to put more contracts on the street to spend available funds,” Lawson told The Washington Examiner.
Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance President Bob Chase said VDOT’s strategy made sense.
“You have to maintain a certain balance to pay your bills,” Chase said. “You can’t have a situation where you have a million dollars or a couple thousand dollars in the bank. You have to have money there that allows you to do business, because it’s not an exact science.”
The more critical issue is where to find more money for roads, not just how to spend the money the state already has, he said.
“The bad news is that we have far more unfunded needs than we have the funds available,” Chase said. “That’s the problem.”
A VDOT study released earlier this year showed that nearly a third of the state’s secondary roads are deficient, up from 24 percent in 2007.
The $100 million in leftover road funds will be used for maintenance next year, Lawson said.
