Maintenance Drain Remains

State law says that transportation maintenance needs must be funded first.

And from 1986 when the Highway Maintenance and Operations Fund (HMOF) was created until 2002, the HMOF contained enough money to cover maintenance needs.

However, in 2002 Virginia’s repeated failure to provide new transportation revenue created a HMOF shortfall that was covered by transferring $3.6 million from the Transportation Construction Trust Fund (TTF).

Between 2003 and 2012, the annual transfer from the TTF grew to more than $500 million per year and over $4 billion was transferred from statewide construction to maintenance.

A key goal of HB 2313 was to eliminate the growing annual “crossover” of construction funds to maintenance by 2017 and, therefore, provide more revenue for construction statewide.

While HB 2313 has helped slow down this drain, it hasn’t stopped it. In fact the state transferred approximately $260 million construction dollars this year to the HMOF. By 2017 it will be $120 million (instead of zero) but then start to increase to nearly $200 million annually by 2020.

Click here to view the current construction transfer to maintenance projections (pg. 13) as well as the latest VDOT fiscal projections.

Continued Maintenance Drain on Construction Dollars.

One More Reason Regional and State 

Construction Funds Must be Invested in Projects of 

Greatest Regional Significance.