SD14 - Report of the Joint Subcommittee Reviewing the Recommendations of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission Concerning Highway Program Financing

  • Published: 1985
  • Author: Joint Subcommittee Reviewing the Recommendations of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission Concerning Highway Program Financing
  • Enabling Authority: Senate Joint Resolution 20 (Regular Session, 1984)

Executive Summary:
The 1982 Appropriations Act directed the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to study the reasonableness, appropriateness, and equity of the current statutory provisions for allocating highway construction funds. Interim analysis, dealing solely with construction allocations, was reported to the General Assembly in January, 1983.

Subsequent to this interim report, the General Assembly directed that JLARC's study be expanded to include other major programs supported by the Highway Maintenance and Construction Fund. Accordingly, JLARC's study included a review of (i) county maintenance spending, (ii) urban street payments, (iii) public transportation assistance, and (iv) funding for Arlington and Henrico counties. In addition, its analysis of construction allocations was brought up-to-date.

The results of this study were presented to the 1984 General Assembly in the report "Equity of the Current Provisions for Allocating Highway and Transportation Funds in Virginia" (House Document No. 11, 1984). Because of the complexity of the issues involved, the extensiveness of the changes which the report proposed, and the shortage of time for consideration of these matters prior to the end of the 1984 Assembly, Senator Hunter Andrews, the out-going Chairman of JLARC, sponsored Senate Joint Resolution No. 20 (SJR 20) in the General Assembly to provide for a review of the JLARC recommendations between the 1984 and 1985 Sessions of the Assembly.

Following the resolution's approval, a fifteen-member joint subcommittee was established, composed of members of the House Committees on Roads and Internal Navigation, Appropriations, and Finance and the Senate Committees on Transportation and Finance. The group began its work in August, electing Delegate L. Cleaves Manning, the in-coming Chairman JLARC, as its chairman.