Transportation 'windfall' is great, but long-term concerns remain

LIKE MANNA from heaven, an audit of the Virginia Department of Transportation ordered by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has unearthed buckets of cash -- $1 billion or more -- sitting in the department's accounts and ready to be spent on badly needed maintenance and construction projects. The money should provide a badly needed shot in the arm both for the commonwealth's ailing road system and for its shaky economy. That's great news.

The even better news is that once Mr. McDonnell was done slashing the previous Democratic administration for its supposed mismanagement of transportation funds, he told a plain truth: This money is a drop in the bucket and will hardly make a dent in Virginia's long-term transportation needs.

Better yet, Mr. McDonnell pledged -- at last -- to unveil a real, ongoing and serious transportation plan -- read: new revenue -- at the end of this year in time for the legislative session starting in January.

"I'm not by any stretch of the imagination saying . . . this will take care of the problem," the governor said. In response to a question a few minutes later, he added: "Our problems are far greater [than the audit can solve]. We have needs in the tens of billions of dollars in the next decade, and that's why we're putting together some long-term ideas."

The governor understands that Virginia has done nothing to find new revenue for transportation in a quarter-century. He was smart to order the audit, and not only because it will get more money flowing into projects faster. More important, it removes the political argument, made by his own Republican allies, that the state cannot possibly seek new transportation funding until it's certain that existing money is being well spent.

By its own estimates, the state needs an additional $100 billion over the next 15 years to build roads, rails and bridges. The "discovery" of unspent funds in this or that account -- especially when much of the money was already committed to contracts that had simply hit minor delays -- is not a transportation fix. Nor is the possibility of $450 million (at a generous estimate) in a one-time windfall that might materialize if Mr. McDonnell wins the coming fight over his proposal to privatize the state's liquor sales.

As for unspent money identified by the audit, it comes in several categories, some disturbing, some not. Faced with plummeting state transportation dollars over the past two years and uncertain federal ones, the previous administration of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine increased its reserve funds for road-building. This was a deliberate and probably prudent policy to ensure that large and long-term construction projects, once started, could be fully paid for. Reducing the reserves now comes with some risk, as state officials themselves acknowledged. They (and the audit) believe that it's an acceptable risk given the pressing need and favorable conditions -- low interest rates, eager contractors. Fine.

The more damning indictment of the Kaine administration is that it also sat on funds for smaller projects and even for maintenance and failed to tap available federal money for those projects. In the fiscal year that ended in June, for instance, the state spent less than half the roughly $840 million it allocated for maintenance projects. It also spent less on maintenance that year than it had in the previous fiscal year, even though the allocation had increased by $51 million.

This is unacceptable, and also inexplicable; after all, no one stole the money, and there are no serious allegations of fraud. Given that this cash was sloshing around the transportation department, it's galling that Mr. Kaine ordered the closure of rest stops along Virginia's interstate highways, for a paltry saving of $9 million. (Mr. McDonnell ordered them reopened.) Was it just incompetence that led to money going unused, or did the layoffs and departures of more than 20 percent of the state's transportation department leave it ill-equipped to manage the money it had?

Give Mr. McDonnell credit for good instincts as a steward of state funds. But the real crucible for his administration will come in a few months when he rolls out his "long-term ideas" for transportation funding. We hope they include a sizable, reliable and ongoing stream of new revenue to fix a problem that has been left to fester since 1986.