Александрия вышла из программы помощи штата Вирджиния после двух лет работы над исправлением финансовых и управленческих процессов

By Sydney Kodama | [email protected] The City of Alexandria is on track to leave the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Locality Sustained Performance Program after more than two years of support from the state, according to city and state officials. The Locality Sustained Performance Program has, since its inception in October 2023, measured which localities need assistance from the state in three key areas – timeliness, progress and fiscal management. Every locality in the Commonwealth with more than five active projects under VDOT’s six-year improvement program is assessed for its performance in the three key areas. If it fails in two or more areas, VDOT works with it on an improvement plan. “We develop a project development improvement plan, a PDIP, and you can call it a corrective action plan,” Terry Short, VDOT’s division director for the local assistance division, told the Times. “… It’s an opportunity for the department and our local partners to communicate more intently and targeted about the projects within their portfolio.” Short confirmed, as reflected in a December 2025 presentation, that when the city’s performance was assessed in fall 2025, it failed in all three areas – which triggered its continued inclusion in the program for 2026. Short told the Times the city failed to meet requirements for fiscal management because “they were working through some internal fiscal processes that were causing some delays in terms of billing.” In response, VDOT has worked with local officials to provide fiscal management training. Short said the city has, overall, been working more efficiently on its projects. “They’ve been executing their planned project schedule with consultants and internal staff to help move projects into the construction phase, and then they … have executed a project spending plan for each of the fiscal years that they have projects in the portfolio,” he said. Hillary Orr, the city’s deputy director of transportation, told the Times that delays in projects had impacted the city’s measured performance. “The city had several legacy projects, so projects that we had had for a very long time, that were delayed for various reasons, and what that means is that those projects become red on a dashboard,” she explained. “So we have been actively working to flip projects green. “Now, some of the really old ones were permanently red,” she continued, “… but because we have been able to get those out the door and get them advertised and under construction, they’re not impacting us the way they did before. And then our current projects, almost all of them are green now.” The city has been a member of the Locality Sustained Performance Program since its inception in October 2023. However, Orr said the city is on its way out. Orr shared a July 6 email from Angel Tao, VDOT’s local assistance program manager for Northern Virginia, that stated the city has reached attainment, indicating that the city has met the requirements to no longer have to operate under a project development improvement plan with VDOT. “Congratulations to the City of Alexandria for officially reaching LSPP Attainment!” Tao wrote in the email. Localities need to meet requirements in at least two of the key areas to meet attainment. According to Tao’s email, Alexandria now meets requirements in the “on-time” and “reasonable progress” areas, and could meet requirements in the “fiscal management” area pending new financial data. Short clarified in a follow-up email with the Times that the city’s “mid-point progress would indicate that they’ve met attainment, but official removal occurs in the fall.” Orr said the city expects to meet fiscal management requirements, but even without doing so, the city would be set to leave the program ahead of 2027. Orr said the city typically learns about its official standing for the following calendar year in October of the previous year. “We have a project development improvement plan that we submit to them that we are required to submit to them due to our past performance in this program,” Orr said. “But now, we shouldn’t have to do that anymore because we are sufficiently green and meeting the goals that they have set out for us.” Mark Eaton noted in a July 2025 column for the Times that a VDOT spokesperson mentioned the city’s standing in the LSPP program when asked why SMART SCALE – the Commonwealth’s process for determining which transportation projects to prioritize – funding for the highly scored Duke Street and Route 1 safety improvement project would be denied. Eaton also noted that Orr, at the time, cited the city’s performance improvement efforts as reason to withdraw the application. Though the LSPP and SMART SCALE are two different VDOT programs, Short acknowledged that a locality’s performance in the LSPP has an impact on what VDOT “decision-makers” think of a locality when assessing grant funding opportunities. “[Performance in the program] definitely informs decision-makers on the portfolios of localities and how they’re performing,” he said. “In some instances, we’ve seen other localities that have gone through or are included in the LSPP, where they have made decisions to cancel projects, refine projects. “I wouldn’t say that there’s a direct correlation,” Short continued, “other than it certainly creates the awareness of how folks are managing their portfolio, but [it’s] not directly punitive.” Orr wrote to the Times that the two programs are completely separate. “LSPP focuses on a locality’s performance in delivering transportation projects, while Smart Scale evaluates and prioritizes individual transportation projects for funding,” she wrote. “… As a result, a locality’s status under the [LSPP] does not influence how projects are scored or ranked through Smart Scale.” The city is seeking funding in this year’s round of Smart Scale applications, due Aug. 3, for a project that seeks to improve safety for pedestrians, bikers and drivers on a stretch of King Street near the Bradlee Shopping Center. The city was not awarded SMART SCALE funding for the same project in 2024, Transportation Capital Projects Manager Sara Brandt-Vorel told the Times. The city first enrolled in the LSPP halfway through fiscal year 2024. The city was awarded one-third, or $15 million out of $45 million of its requested state transportation funding in FY24; 20%, or $21 million out of $103 million in FY25; and 100%, or all of the $3 million it applied for in FY26, according to a dashboard on the city’s website. Out of the three fiscal years, only FY25 was a year that localities, including the City of Alexandria, could apply for SMART SCALE funding. In FY25, the city applied for a total of nearly $52 million in funding for Duke Street at Route 1, Eisenhower Complete Streets and the King-Bradlee Safety Enhancement projects and did not receive funding for any of the three. The city also did not receive any of the $44 million SMART SCALE funding it applied for in FY23 but had received about $84 million of the $87 million it had applied for in SMART SCALE funding in FY19. The SMART SCALE funding is for projects to start construction five years after applying for funding, Brandt-Vorel told the Times. Brandt-Vorel told the Times that, “geographically, Northern Virginia did not fare well” in SMART SCALE funding it applied for in FY25. Northern Virginia was awarded 14% of total SMART SCALE funding in FY25. Overall, Short said the city has worked closely with the state to tangibly improve its performance in managing projects. “They’re definitely making great strides, and if things stay on track as they are, they may hit attainment this fall,” he said. “I think the … leadership and staff should be really really proud of themselves for all the diligent work that they’ve been applying to it.”