Is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell Pulling a Scott Walker?

This is very disruptive, Northern Virginia leaders say, not least because they already approved their budgets for next year and none of this is part of their budgets. They might need to pay for extra staff to handle the paperwork involved, approve agreements to hand the money back to NVTC, and more, all at the last minute.

There is a lot of paperwork, auditing, and other administrative hassle involved in receiving state and federal money and giving money to WMATA and other transit agencies. Northern Virginia jurisdictions say that having NVTC handle all of this saves them a lot of time and money, especially for the very small cities like Falls Church and City of Fairfax.

Why is [the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation] doing this? DRPT officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but according to the Fairfax County Board meeting's staff memo (page 253), "Director Drake noted that this was being done to ensure that each local government and agency understands how much money it is receiving from DRPT."

This certainly makes the move sound like retaliation for the way Northern Virginia pushed back against the McDonnell administration's efforts to take more power over WMATA for itself and away from the local cities and counties.