Nine Miles Of Bad Road

"We have done our best to hold municipalities harmless," [Governor] Douglas said. But at a time when state government revenue is dropping everyone – including the towns – has to pitch in, he said.
    Louis Porter, Herald

Montpelier has come up with a really slick way of balancing the state’s 2009 budget.  It is  going to stiff the towns.

This is not a new tactic by higher forms of government.  Anyone who has ever served on a local school board (and a more thankless task has never been devised by the hand of man) knows about “unfunded mandates.”  This is where higher, more august levels of government decree that this or that shall be done throughout the land and then neglect to provide any money to pay for it.  Towns, counties, school districts, and so forth are on the hook when it comes to that.

So Montpelier is going to cut the money that it had said it would be sending to the towns  to pay for transportation projects.  Filling potholes, mostly, which is something that must be done, come Spring, in Vermont.

Towns are committed to many of these projects and will have to find ways to cover the shortfalls.  They will, in fact, be obliged to raise property taxes.

Alternatively, they can cancel the projects and we can all drive around on roads with surfaces that are rough enough to jar the fillings out of your teeth.

What is particularly galling about this is Montpelier’s lame excuse.  “We don’t have the money,” just doesn’t fly in a year when the state is spending $75 million in stimulus money to close a deficit in the general fund. 

What we heard, back when the stimulus was merely a theoretical proposition, was that it was the best way to get money rapidly into the system.  Like giving a patient going into shock an IV to get his blood pressure back up.  And the best and most useful place to spend the money quickly was ¬– all together, now, children – on roads and bridges. 

Now Montpelier has other priorities – there are, after all, interest groups to being taken care of – and that sure-fire remedy to bring us out of the recession and get our roads and bridges all smooth and sparkling … well, that will just have to wait. 

Maybe until the recovery or the next recession.

Whichever comes first.

Comments

[Jim Condos]

It's interesting that you blame "Montpelier" when the quote with the photo is the Governor.

Please remember it was the Governor who first proposed and still wants this.

[Ed G. Mann]

Sorry Jim, it's the Legislature that has been raping the transportation fund for years.

Now they will not cut the budget in places that would allow money to go to the towns for road work. Instead it's MORE taxes.

When this liberal idiocy gets into the backyard, maybe then voters will toss these clowns out of office.

[GreggB]

Oh Jim that is funny. As if anyone in Montpelier practices fiscal responsibility. VT's economic disaster transcends party lines. As an aside the Tiger has never been kind to Douglas- go search and see.

[Jerry Coleman]

Its ok to stiff the towns but god forbid we put any state workers or people on welfare out on the street. I had to laugh when Sen. Barlett said "we've looked under every rock" to save money. I guess she's never been out of her office. If she had, she would of never come back to Montpelier.!!! Not in her lifetime.

[Hunter Melville]

Personally this doesn't bug me, when the roads deteriorate, people aren't going to blame their local selectmen and women. When you drive on town roads to go over to buy stuff in tax-free New Hampshire and pass through various Vermont towns dodging pot holes and breaking axles, you won't blame THEIR selectmen. And outside of Vermont, when tourists start asking each other, "Boy, what's wrong with Vermont? The roads are like those in some bombed out Third World country?" The news reports won't blame the town governments of Vermont, it'll be the State as a whole. And maybe, just maybe, people will wake up and start electing representatives who care more about the lives and happiness of their fellow citizen's rather than the agendas of out-of-state special interest groups.

[Dennis Lukas]

I will be buying my gas in New Hampshire while shopping in tax free New Hampshire. So much for the 5 cent Vermont gas tax to improve our roads. I am looking into a class action lawsuit against the state for damage to vehicles due to the poor road conditions as the transportation fund has not been used for its intended purpose.

[Pete Snyder]

Good Luck on the lawsuit...Please let us know when you win.