Virginia is withholding $20 million from Northern Virginia transit agencies in an impasse over a seat on Metro’s board of directors.
The total will reach $33 million if the stalemate is not resolved by the end of October, according to the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, which doles out the money. That puts in jeopardy the local bus services and commuter trains that rely on the funds, officials said.
Virginia Railway Express is waiting on more than $2.5 million that was due at the end of August, spokesman Mark Roeber said. The commuter train service has been able to make do with reserves and riders’ fares, but by the end of October it will run out of wiggle room. It’s a “critical date for us,” Roeber said.
Metro board member and Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff McKay called the situation a form of blackmail.
“The people being leaned on are the riders,” he said. “There will be implications for all Northern Virginia transportation agencies if this impasse is not solved.”
At issue is a document that the state has asked the NVTC and local governments to sign, giving the state a potential seat on any oversight board of public transit providers receiving state money.
“We do not dispense any state dollars without a signed agreement,” Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation Director Thelma Drake told The Washington Examiner.
Metro and the Dulles Rail Project inspired the state to create the amendment, she said, as Virginia would like to have more oversight over expensive projects it helps fund. She said that at least 50 other entities have signed the agreement, with the only holdouts in Fairfax County, Alexandria, Arlington and the NVTC. She said the state already has authority to have a seat on Metro’s board because of a budget bill passed earlier this year, but that the funding agreement reiterates the right to a state seat.
NVTC members say they are concerned the agreement would violate the compact governing Metro that Maryland, the District, the federal government and Virginia have agreed upon. The commission’s attorney is reviewing the legality of signing it.
“We’re not opposed to having a seat for the governor on the Metro board, but there’s a process of amending the compact,” NVTC Chairman Bill Euille said.
Drake said neither the agreement nor the budget package conflicts with Metro’s compact.
The issue is the latest skirmish over the Metro board. Gov. Bob McDonnell unsuccessfully threatened to withhold $50 million in state funding last year unless the state got to appoint two seats on the board. Then he tacked an amendment onto the state budget giving him one voting seat on Metro’s board, then named prominent local attorney James Dyke Jr. to fill it. But it’s not clear whose seat Dyke would take.
Virginia has four seats on the 16-seat board. Maryland, the District and the federal government also have four seats apiece. Typically, Virginia’s seats are given to two elected Fairfax County officials, one Arlington politician and one elected official from the cities of Falls Church, Fairfax or Alexandria. “It’s not easy to say we’ll walk away from this,” Euille said. “We would not have a voice.”
