The separate State Road Fund, which covers the costs of building and maintaining a 36,000-mile highway system in West Virginia, relies on gasoline taxes, license plate fees and a privilege tax on vehicle sales. These sources produce more than $600 million annually and along with federal appropriations of a like amount support a $1.3 billion annual operation.
But the combination of a freeze on the gasoline tax and an economic downturn that has reduced purchases of new cars and trucks has caused Division of Highways number crunchers to predict revenue will drop by nearly $300 million in the state's next budget year beginning July 1, 2010.
The timing couldn't be worse. A recent study by a Washington-based non-profit organization concluded that West Virginia will need to find nearly $5 billion of new money during the next decade to maintain its roads and bridges that currently rank "among the deadliest in the nation."
This study found that more than one-third of the state's roads are in poor or mediocre condition and one-third of the highway bridges in the state are either "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete." Even more alarming was the finding that between 2003 and 2007, West Virginia had the third-highest rate of fatalities per 100 million miles of travel in the nation.
West Virginians for Better Transportation, a new organization that claims some 250 members ranging from chambers of commerce to civic groups around the state, is leading a push to change the way the state pays for highway maintenance. Based on the objections to higher tolls on the 88-mile West Virginia Turnpike, any steps that involve making it more expensive for motorists to drive on the state's highways are certain to be politically unpopular.
The state Department of Transportation estimates, cited in the study, have concluded the state needs about $9.75 billion during the next decade to improve its highway system but estimates current revenue streams would yield only half that amount. For the current budget year, there is more than $200 million in federal stimulus dollars earmarked for highway improvements.
Some of the most expensive projects already identified include major improvements to traffic flow in some of the busy urban areas like Morgantown, Martinsburg and Beckley. Some major expressway projects in the state, notably completion of Corridor H (U. S. Route 33) from I-79 near Weston to the Virginia border and completion of U. S. Route 35 improvements from St. Albans to the Ohio border at Point Pleasant, are stymied by a lack of funding.
Efforts in southern West Virginia to complete a King Coal Highway and the all-but-abandoned plans to complete a four-lane expressway along the Ohio River from Huntington to Wheeling are even less certain.
Spoiled by the 90 percent federal highway money for Interstate construction in past years and the 70-30 federal match for the Appalachian Developmental Highways like Corridor G that opened up the area between Charleston and Williamson, the prospects for $5 billion in new highway user taxes in West Virginia may be politically impossible.
One of the most alarming statistics repeatedly mentioned at the 2009 session of the Legislature is the fact that West Virginia spends 13 percent more per person on health care than the national average. And the growth in that spending in this state is increasing at a rate higher than in other parts of the country.
That's why legislators finally agreed at the extended session in late May to create the Governor's Office of Health Enhancement and Lifestyle Planning (GOHELP), a new office that will coordinate all the efforts to rein in these soaring costs with increased emphasis on preventive, less expensive methods of treatment.
Gov. Joe Manchin has named former state senator Martha Walker of Charleston, who is retiring after serving in the governor's cabinet as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources since 2005, to serve as the first director of this new agency. Now 69, Walker will serve at the will of the governor at a salary that he will decide.
The initial work will be to set up three kinds of pilot programs for so-called "patient centered medical homes" that involve the patient's family and community as well as physicians and the entire gamut of healthcare providers needed for that patient. A report on the initial efforts is due at the Legislature by Dec. 1, 2009.
It's good to learn that the appropriate state officials have finally determined that the building on the State Capitol campus that will be home to the new State Museum is now officially identified correctly as the "Culture Center" and not the "cultural center" as had been the case for many years.
Still, old-timers will probably continue to fondly refer to it by the nickname attached as soon as it was finished during the administration of former Gov. Arch Moore. Because of its unusual architectural design, it was dubbed "Archie's Bunker" with apologies to the star of one of that era's most popular television sitcoms.
Tom Miller is a retired state government reporter for The Herald-Dispatch. He is a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch opinion page.