The Virginia Department of Transportation cut its cost estimates and delayed transportation projects over the next six years in order to have an approved state construction plan by July 1 because no state budget has been passed.
The Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board approved the tighter six-year, $6.9 billion construction plan on Thursday.
VDOT officials assumed their agency’s budget would be the same as in previous years, but with lower revenue forecasts and higher construction costs, the six-year plan took a $795 million cut, said Tamara Neale, a VDOT spokeswoman.
Projects like the widening of Route 7 had their funding reduced and their construction start dates delayed. VDOT had intended to get a contractor for a project on Alexandria’s Mill Road this year, but that has been pushed off indefinitely.
“If you could see all the numbers, you would see significant reductions in the urban, primary and secondary road systems. This is particularly of issue to your localities,” Neale said.
“This is yet another example of how the calendar dictates actions that must occur and actions that are directly impacted by the lack of a state budget,” said Kevin Hall, a spokesman for Gov. Tim Kaine.
Del. Vince Callahan, R-McLean, was confident Thursday evening that budget conferees would have a compromise ready for the General Assembly by Monday.
The department has about $10 billion over the next two years from existing revenue streams in the pending state budget, Callahan said. The “enhanced funding” which drove the General Assembly into a special session is still up for discussion.
If the state budget were approved by July 1, the funding would only help to offset the $795 million deficit with which VDOT is starting fiscal 2007, said Pierce Homer, Virginia Secretary of Transportation.
“Our transportation resources continue to shrink and even with a biennial budget, we are talking about reducing reductions and not talking about adding capacity or eliminating congestion,” he said.
