STATE BUDGETS | hot topic
THE BARE NECESSITIES States Cut Back Even More
REST AREAS BECOME HOT BUTTON ISSUE RICHMOND, VA.—Signs and barriers mark the closing of an Interstate 64 rest stop near Richmond, Va. The Virginia Department of Transportation closed 18 rest stops due to budget cuts but will reopen them this year.
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» MARCH/APRIL 2010
needed to clean the rest areas, according to Caldwell. “We have to find $7.5 million to run those. It’s a zero sum game,” he said. The department pulled $3 million out of its emergency maintenance reserve fund to pay for the reopened rest areas through June 30, Caldwell said. Cuts will be made elsewhere in the budget to pay for reopened rest areas—but where was still up in the air in February, according to Caldwell, when the first four closed rest areas were reopened along Interstate 81. The others re-opened in phases in mid-March, with the final seven scheduled to be reopened by April 15. And that’s just it. Services states have been used to providing in good years are things residents have come to expect. In the bad years, those cuts can be painful and there may not be the political will to make the cuts, experts say. “States have tried the cut, cut, cut, approach and they’re realizing that that can only go so far,” said Sujit CanagaRetna, senior fiscal analyst with The Council of State Governments
CAPITOL IDEAS
Photo: Steve Helber/ ©2010 The Associated Press
It was a cost-cutting measure that didn’t stick. When Virginia shut down 19 rest stops throughout the state in summer 2009 because of budget shortfalls, officials didn’t think anybody would really notice, or really care. After all, it’s just a highway pit stop, right? But boy did people care. “Rest areas became a hot button issue,” said Jeffrey Caldwell, chief of communications for the Virginia Department of Transportation. “We understand that rest areas are an amenity people have gotten used to. But we couldn’t afford to operate as many rest areas as we had. There was no easy choice here.” So to deal with the $4.6 billion shortfall in revenue for transportation, the state closed the rest areas, hoping to save more than $7 million a year. But Bob McDonnell, who took office as governor this year, ordered the state to re-open the highway pit stops, even though the Virginia Department of Transportation isn’t sure where to find the money to keep the lights on and the plumbing going, and to pay the custodians
by Mikel Chavers
