LIke all candidates, Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell’s campaign was steeped in the future tense, promising a radiant future under his leadership. Today, McDonnell looks the present tense square in the eye.
It is a horrific sight. The economy remains listless and fragile. Resources available to the chief executive are dwarfed by a long list of challenges.
It would be easy to view the present as a cause for despair, but McDonnell can instead recognize it as an opportunity to set a tone for his term. If he seizes that opportunity, he can win the confidence of Virginians and use that trust to press for progress on the state’s most nettlesome problems.
The first test of McDonnell’s leadership will be twofold, requiring him to be a good steward of the state’s vanishing finances and to restore faith in Virginia’s highway agency.
No issue is more pressing than our declining highway and rail infrastructure. McDonnell has vowed to construct new roads and bridges without raising taxes.
It is a fact that roads are not built for free. It is also a fact that the cost to Virginia families from an increase in gas or sales taxes can be counted in pennies.
McDonnell understands those realities, but he also understands something else: Pennies matter right now. Families have resisted persuasion on the mathematics of transportation funding because they are consumed with the mathematics of their own survival.
Virginians won’t be willing to pay for better roads until they believe better roads are possible. They have come to view the Virginia Department of Transportation as an obstacle.
Avoidable mistakes resulted in flooding at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and the Downtown Tunnel this summer, paralyzing the region.
Construction has been canceled, rest stops shuttered and maintenance slashed. A precipitous decline in revenues has made down-sizing necessary, but in the process of dismantling itself and bemoaning the services it can’t provide, VDOT has failed to explain what it can do. The agency simply lacks a clear mission, and that has led to lost credibiilty.
The transportation plan McDonnell announced during his campaign is packed with unlikely ideas that could keep the new governor occupied until the day he leaves office.
It will be years before Virginia can collect royalties from offshore drilling, if the federal government ever feels generous enough to grant the state a share. It will be years before state revenues are healthy again. It will be years — if ever — before Virginia is given permission to toll interstates.
Rather than expend all his energies on wild goose chases, McDonnell must focus on what he can accomplish right now, in the present tense.
He can hire strong finance and transportation managers. He can redefine VDOT’s mission, giving it clear and meaningful goals that can be achieved with existing resources.
He can make sure revenues from the federal stimulus and any future bonds are targeted to projects that yield the greatest and swiftest benefits. He can repair relationships with companies disillusioned by the state’s retreat from public-private partnerships.
This is not a new blueprint for reform, but rather a variation of one used by Gov. Mark Warner when he took office in 2002 and faced remarkably similar financial constraints. Warner hired VDOT Commissioner Phil Shucet and together they sharpened the agency’s mission and restored public confidence . A budget crisis intervened and Warner was forced to expend the good will he had accumulated to resuscitate funding for schools, health care and law enforcement. Transportation was set aside for another day. That day has yet to arrive.
Unlike Warner, McDonnell is constrained, by his own choosing, by absolutists who demand he swear off all taxes and fees, no matter how necessary . McDonnell has made fleeting attempts to stray from that orthodoxy, but there is no evidence he intends to do so as governor. While he may lack the will to see Virginia through to a full resolution of its transportation challenges, he can use his four years to make the unglamorous but critical reforms to rebuild VDOT’s credibility.
That’s only a first step, but i t’s one McDonnell can take right now. His leadership won’t be judged by his campaign promises, but by his willingness to accept accountability for fulfilling them. That accountability comes to roost in the present tense.
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It's There Turn
Roads, Jobs, and NO NEW TAXES. Good luck Republicans. Can't wait to see how you do.
Mike
Mike you speak of internal (inside) I'm talking about external audits. Your correct on the internal. Before taxes are raised look for waste, correct it, then move forward. One board member on the Commonwealth Transportation board said just last spring, a penny increase in gas tax will solve the transportation issue. Last increase was in 1985? With gas prices today, oil companies can raise the price a dime and I would not even notice it. The GA will have to raise the gas tax, but before they do that, eliminate the waste. Without going into detail, it is a fact, there are many VDOT managers that spend money as if it was their own and not the taxpayers. Also, management is top heavy -- too many managers.
Never happen
Yes, I got your point about the external audit. But you are missing the order of magnitude here. Do away totally with VDOT, and do what is necessary by contract, and you will spend more money than now, with no better product. The issue is lack of resources, as evidenced by the D- score assigned our roads and bridges by the Virginia Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Do you really think that the anti tax republicans and libertarians that voted for McDonnell will ever let him forget his promise not to raise transportation related taxes and fees? The answer is no, they will not forget, even if the Governor elect were to forget, which in my view will not happen. He said what he said and he meant it. So in four years, we will be having this same discussion, except the roads and bridges will have earned an F, and to the degree that he funds transportation from education, their infrastructure will earn an F as well.
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATON
Not to worry - Phil Shucet is on the top of the list for the position. VDOT had him as commissioner and the commonwealth will have him as secretary. More will be cut.
What to do?
Thanks for that clarification, but as I recall, VDOT has been audited eight times in the last seven years, so another audit will have marginal impact at best. Given the Pilot's loss of confidence that anything will happen in the next four years, what role should a newly reorganized VDOT, and the Commonwealth Transportation Board, play? First, plan to abandon projects in some rational order. Second, divert maintenance money to the systemic problems like potential bridge failures; pot holes, intersection improvements, sign replacement will just have to wait. Third, should some roads that are less travelled by simply be abandoned, or at a minimum, simply be designated as by passed roads, with no state maintenance? Fourth, since we will no longer be able to fund the state match of federal projects, and won't be receiving this money, we must establish a grant writing department that will apply for every special funding possible, for that is the only way we will get federal money.
Mike this is what I mean
One need only look to the head of VDOT - a political "yes" man. How well you do a job no longer counts. Politics is all powerful. New Governor needs to fix it! Decades ago VDOT actually was immune from politics, but the democrats changed that. The new Governor, after Jan. 1st, needs to pick up and run with the independent audit idea as the House passed during the special transportation session, but the Democrat Senators let it die without a second in committee. VDOT does not want an external audit. That should tell people something - sure VDOT has done internal audits, but an external audit is needed on that state agency. It has been over 15 years since the last external audit. Last one, was in 1994 after Wilder's term.
What do you really mean?
OK, Martins, got that. Then what? Are you saying that once the Governor institutes a perfectly new VDOT, that he will then have money for bridges, tunnels, highways, and public transit? Regretfully, if we never spent another dime on VDOT it would mean little to having sufficient funds for new infrastructure. Or are you saying that once the Governor has replaced VDOT with new personnel, or contracted for all the services they provide, that the voters will release him from his pledge not to raise transportation related taxes and fees? Again, I don't think so. He has pledged to govern as he ran for office, and I know a few conservative and libertarian voters that will turn on him immediately if he were to break that pledge. So, what do you really mean?
A new VDOT on the horizon
No doubt, the new Governor will appoint a new Secretary of Transportation and a VDOT commissioner. The new Commissioner needs to take a hard look at all the Districts and a harder look at the Hampton Roads District. Besides the inept management public affairs, spin masters need to find new work. Also, an external audit of the entire VDOT department overdue.
Expect More
Perhaps you are correct that because of the constraints of politics and ideology, that the best we can accomplish in the next four years is to reform VDOT. But that agency has been condemned and criticized so much, and has been the object of ridiculue and disdain whether deserved or not, that the continuing deterioration of our transportation infrastructure will only result in more disdain, not less, no matter what the Governor does in regard to appointing competent officials. So while your prescription herein is a real slap of reality, there are seeds of awareness blowing in the wind. While the reality of the no tax pledge dominates the House of Delegates, the public in all parts of the Commonwealth is becoming increasingly annoyed and angry at the deplorable condition of our roads, and while I share your view that the Governor elect's proposed solutions are fairytales, most voters really think he will tackle this problem. The clash of hope and reality can produce strange bedfellows. Standby.
Hold VDOT personnel accountable
I agree that one of the first things that need to be done is for VDOT to be made more credible. Many voters are against more taxes for road because they see the money going into an inept agency which squanders its resources. Whether this is true or not that is the perception of many. Then again, how could anyone think differently when no one is held publicly accountable for what appears to be negligence? A recent example is the lack of maintenance to water pipes in the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel in causing major traffic problems in July. There has not been any report of even one official or engineer within VDOT who has been disciplined or dismissed due to this problem. So I would suggest that a lineup of VDOT personnel is in order and those who have not measured up be dismissed and if necessary replaced immediately. That would bring some credibility to the agency.
"There has not been any
"There has not been any report of even one official or engineer within VDOT who has been disciplined or dismissed due to this problem. So I would suggest that a lineup of VDOT personnel is in order and those who have not measured up be dismissed and if necessary replaced immediately. That would bring some credibility to the agency."
With all due respect Sir you are incorrect. VDOT people have been disciplined and dismissed, all be it with out a public flogging as some would like to have. As for "those who have not measured up be dismissed and if necessary replaced immediately" you need to know that VDOT has lost nearly 1/3 of its workforce due to mandated reductions and hiring freezes have been in place for several years. VDOT has and will continue to suffer a dramatic "brain drain" due to its loss of personnel over poor pay and reductions. I admonish you to remember that VDOT is not empowered to make or set transportation policy. Your elected official in the legislature and the CTB can be thanked for those areas of concern. VDOT has simply become a fall guy for those failings and as an agency not permitted to publicly defend itself. I continue to be confounded by the number of
Bob
You really think anyone that works for a government agency is going to be held accountable for their actions? That’s why they work for a government agency, so they can’t be blamed or held accountable.