With Virginia's budget ax falling heavily on the state Transportation Department, the agency will lay off 450 part-time workers across the state next month and nearly 1,000 full-time employees during the next 18 months.
The reduction in force will be the largest involuntary layoff in the department's more-than-a-century history.
"This is not a fun occasion," state Transportation Secretary Pierce R. Homer told the Commonwealth Transportation Board yesterday as it came to grips with the effects of Virginia's budget crisis.
"We can't continue as usual," Homer said. "The money isn't there."
Faced with an expected $2.6 billion reduction in state transportation revenue during the next six years, the Virginia Department of Transportation also has recommended:
Going forward, the department will concentrate its efforts on highway safety and emergency response and the maintenance and operation of Virginia's almost 58,000 miles of roads and 12,600 bridges, he said.
"Motorist safety and emergency response continue to be VDOT's top priorities," Ekern said. "However, VDOT will be smaller and focused solely on core services and commitments."
"I want to be sure we're getting the metric right," said board member Gerald P. McCarthy of Richmond. "I don't want to compromise safety because someone's too cheap to raise the gas tax."
Starting in July, the state's six-year transportation-improvement program also will eliminate the traditional formula for distribution of funds to counties and cities for locally selected road-construction projects.
"We just ran out of money," said Reta R. Busher, the department's chief financial officer.
"The General Assembly at some point in time is going to have to step up to the plate" and provide more revenue for the state's transportation system, said Mike Edwards with the Virginia Association of Counties. "Local leaders are upset."
VDOT currently has 605 hourly employees -- who generally work three days a week -- and about 8,400 full-time, salaried employees. The agency is aiming to be down to 7,500 employees by July 1, 2010.
"I cannot achieve the necessary reductions without affecting currently employed staff," Ekern told the board.
Layoffs among full-time employees will depend on their work unit and its role in the department's activities, plus their seniority. "Last in, first out," Ekern said. "Seniority drives within the [state personnel] system."
Specifically which full-time jobs will be eliminated and how much savings will result has yet to be determined, officials said.
More senior employees can volunteer to be laid off in place of other workers to take advantage of the state's severance benefits.
To save money, VDOT proposes closing its residency operations in Henrico, Caroline and Amelia counties and its equipment shops in Chesterfield County and Petersburg during the next 18 months.
The Jamestown-Scotland Ferry, far and away the state's busiest, would see its daily hours of operation cut to 16 from 24 and use only two of the three vessels on the service across the James River.
Virginia's highway agency will receive about $694 million from the federal economic-stimulus package, Ekern said.
That money will pay for some short-term projects, but "it does not change the trajectory" that the department is following to cope with the even larger state budget reductions, he said.
VDOT plans to meet with community leaders and the public to discuss the potential service and organizational impacts of its cuts at public meetings across the state this spring. The dates and locations will be finalized soon.
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.com.
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