VDOT bonuses

By JR Hoeft | Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | Policy

Democrats have a new transportation plan – slash tires in order to keep Republicans off the road. While that might be beneficial to some, it probably isn’t a long-range solution to our budget and transportation issues.

Interesting then that in today’s RTD, they report on a wide-range of bonuses being paid to employees of the much maligned state agency:

“Certainly there are some very talented employees at VDOT and all state agencies,” said Sen. Ryan T. McDougle, R-Hanover. “But as a policy decision, it seems to me irresponsible to be paying out retention bonuses and out-of-cycle pay raises when we have seen a sustained climate of economic decline, and certainly unemployment levels in Virginia where they have not been in recent history.

“When we’re stopping core services and laying off employees and still paying out one-time salary increases,” McDougle continued, “then you have to really ask whether we are making good decisions with our resources.”

That is certainly true. But what is also true is that our infrastructure is still in need of improvement and VDOT remains as inefficient as ever…yet we’ve provided VDOT a 70% payroll increase over only 8 years – and we’re still paying out one-time bonuses?

Something seems very, very wrong here.

Tags: