Department of Transportation (501)

Authority: Title 33.1, Code of Virginia.

A. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the highway share of the Transportation Trust Fund shall be used for highway maintenance and operation purposes prior to its availability for new development, acquisition, and construction.

B. Administrative and Support Services shall include funding for management, direction, and administration to support the department’s activities that cannot be directly attributable to individual programs and/or projects.

C. Out of the amounts for General Management and Direction, allocations shall be provided to the Commonwealth Transportation Board to support its operations, the payment of financial advisory and legal services, and the management of the Transportation Trust Fund.

D. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Department may assess and collect the costs of providing services to other entities, public and private. The Department shall take all actions necessary to ensure that all such costs are reasonable and appropriate, recovered, and understood as a condition to providing such service.

E. Each year, as part of the six-year financial planning process, the Commissioner shall implement a long-term business strategy that considers appropriate staffing levels for the department. In addition, the Commissioner shall identify services, programs, or projects that will be evaluated for devolution or outsourcing in the upcoming year. In undertaking such evaluations, the Commissioner is authorized to use the appropriate resources, both public and private, to competitively procure those identified services, programs, or projects and shall identify total costs for such activities.  The department shall adhere to provisions of paragraphs B.2. and B.3. of Item 462.05 of Chapter 781, 2009 Acts of Assembly.

F.1. Any action to modernize and integrate the automated systems of the Department of Transportation shall be based on a plan that includes developing the integrated system in phases, or modules. When such plan is approved and to minimize the financial impact, the Department may incrementally budget for the modernization. 

2. The Department of General Services, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Human Resource Management, the Department of Planning and Budget, and the Department of Accounts shall support the system modernization effort of the Department of Transportation through the adoption of statewide data standards. These data standards shall include, but not be limited to, vendor tables, agency identification information, state employee identification information, charts of accounts, receiving information, invoice information, purchase information including commodity codes, and any other essential data standards necessary to conduct business. The Departments of General Services, Treasury, Human Resource Management, Planning and Budget, and Accounts shall provide the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency and the Department of Transportation with such data standards by July 1, 2010, and the CIO shall utilize these data standards to develop the Commonwealth's data standards. Within 60 days following completion of data standards development, the CIO shall present such data standards to the Secretary of Technology for approval as provided in § 2.2-225, Code of Virginia. Upon approval by the Secretary of Technology, the Commonwealth shall use such data standards for all new Commonwealth information systems implementation projects including, but not limited to, Commonwealth enterprise application initiatives.

G. Notwithstanding § 4-2.03 of this act, the Virginia Department of Transportation shall be exempt from recovering statewide and agency indirect costs from the Federal Highway Administration until an indirect cost plan can be evaluated and developed by the agency and approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

H. The Director, Department of Planning and Budget, is authorized to adjust appropriations and allotments for the Virginia Department of Transportation to reflect changes in the official revenue estimates for commonwealth transportation funds.

I. Out of the amounts for General Management and Direction, allocations shall be provided to support the capital lease agreement with Fairfax County for the Northern Virginia District building.  An amount estimated at $7,800,000 the first year and $7,800,000 the second year shall be provided from Commonwealth Transportation Funds.

J. Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, the Commonwealth Transportation Commissioner may enter into a contract with homeowner associations for grounds-keeping, mowing, and litter removal services.

K.1. The Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Administration, the Commissioner, Virginia Department of Transportation, and Director, Department of General Services, shall conduct an assessment of properties owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation that are not in active use by the Department to identify facilities that could be returned to private use.  Such report shall include an estimate of the revenues that would be generated by the sale of unused properties that are proposed to be sold and/or leased as well as recommendations of facilities to sell or lease.  The findings of this examination shall be reported to the Chairmen of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees no later than October 1, 2010.

2. The Virginia Department of Transportation is directed to proceed with the sale of the closed Culpeper Residency Office in Culpeper, Virginia.  If no contract has been entered into for such sale by December 1, 2010, the Commissioner, Virginia Department of Transportation, shall report to the Chairmen of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees on the status of the property, the assumed sale price and what actions he is taking to expedite the sale of such property.