CHARLESTON — Wanting to push more funds away from bureaucracy and to road and bridge projects, Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced several reforms to help the West Virginia Department of Transportation maintain the state’s highways and bridges.

Morrisey and Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Todd Rumbaugh held a press conference Monday morning at the Division of Highways District Four Headquarters in Bridgeport.

“The state of our roads and bridges is critical because it affects everything we do,” Morrisey said. “Our ability to connect with one another, our ability to drive to work, what we do when we go out to restaurants, how we live, how we play. You need to have a strong infrastructure in our state to compete.

“I don’t need to tell you about the condition of the roads and bridges in West Virginia. It’s not what our people deserve,” Morrisey continued. “And so, we have to change that.”

“As we face ongoing funding challenges, our focus must be clear: Preserving and maintaining the roads and bridges we already have, ensuring the safety of every traveler, and investing in the workforce that makes all of it possible,” Rumbaugh said.

Morrisey directed DOT to start a new project list that assesses the need for repair and replacement of bridges and highways statewide and prioritizes the order of the projects to be completed. DOT will work with federal counterparts and local counties to leverage additional resources for existing road and bridge maintenance. DOT will also make better use of data to create a long-term transportation plan to prioritize maintenance and better-informed financial decisions.

“While we’ve made some important headway in the past, the reality is clear: We are falling behind in preserving and maintaining our existing assets,” Rumbaugh said. “Across the board, from deteriorating pavement to rusting beams, we are seeing the consequences of decades of underinvestment in maintenance…That’s why we must shift the focus and resources towards preserving what we already have.”

According to Morrisey, despite the approval of the Roads to Prosperity road bond program – the brainchild of former governor Jim Justice – there is virtually no money left from the road bonds for future road and bridge projects.

“One of the most disappointing things that we found when we took office was despite the billions of dollars that were spent in the last eight years on highways and bridges, there was a lot of debt that was racked up,” Morrisey said. “When I came into office, what I found most alarming was that the DOT seemed to be basically out of money. If you look at the Roads to Prosperity, that was a 30-year bond…I’m here to tell you that the Roads to Prosperity money, it’s all gone.”

Voters approved the Roads to Prosperity Amendment in 2017, allowing for the issuance of bonds not to exceed $1.6 billion to improve major roads and bridges as well as new road construction. The premiums from Roads to Prosperity bond sales have gone into secondary road maintenance for existing road projects, as well as the purchase of new highway maintenance vehicles and equipment.

But Morrisey said Monday that there is one Roads to Prosperity project remaining, with other projects poised to begin despite there being no funding in place for those projects.

“We were designing and starting construction on highways all over the state that we had no way to pay for,” Morrisey said. “We got to the point where soon we were going to have to tell some of the contractors to stop working. That’s not what we ever want to do.”

According to Morrisey, the U.S. Department of Transportation warned state officials that changes would need to be made in how West Virginia allocated state and federal transportation dollars, otherwise the federal DOT might begin reducing the amount of funding the state receives.

“Basically, the state was spending so much on some of the new highways without a clear plan for getting them done,” Morrisey said. “We had a basic look at our financial numbers and it’s obvious that we can’t even afford a lot of the existing highways that are on the books. So, we’re going to solve that problem.”

The state will spend $1.2 billion on transportation by the end of this fiscal year, but of that, $120 million goes to interest costs on the state’s road bonds. According to the Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report, West Virginia ranked fifth in the nation for capital and bridge disbursements and 12th for maintenance spending.

West Virginia also ranked seventh in the nation in the Reason Foundation report for administration disbursements, defined as “office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads.” Morrisey said the DOT will reduce the number of management positions to ensure more state funding goes to highway maintenance and not to administrative costs.

“Quite frankly, the Department of Transportation had too many assistant directors and division directors relative to the money that it has to spend and money that’s better spent on highways and bridges,” Morrisey said. “We’re getting rid of the bureaucracy. We’re going to put more money on the roads and the bridges. That’s what the people want. That’s what the people deserve…Money is no longer going to get stuck in the state Capitol.”

A report released by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association said 18.6 percent of the state’s more than 7,300 bridges were rated as structurally deficient and ranked second in the nation for the number of structurally deficient bridges. Morrisey cited other reports that place the percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the state at 14 percent, a number he said must come down.

“We have to change that. Our goal may be modest, but we’re working hard on it,” Morrisey said. “By 2028, we have to get that number down. We have to get that number down under 10 percent. We also have to ensure that we’re no longer ranked at the bottom of all these infrastructure ranks.”

“This is not just a goal for us. It is a promise rooted in responsibility, resilience, and results,” Rumbaugh said. “We owe it to our residents, our industries, and our future to ensure that the infrastructure is not just functional, but resilient, safe, and forward-looking. Together, we are building a transportation network that meets the needs of today and stands strong for generations to come.”

Morrisey and DOT will also work on a plan to pay down the state’s bond debt in a responsible way that reduces the per-capita cost to citizens. And DOT will work on transparency issues in how road and bridge projects are selected, focusing on fixing the most urgent needs instead of decisions being based on political considerations.

“In the future, we’re focusing on data-driven and evidence-based decisions,” Morrisey said. “I abhor these decisions that are just made on politics and who screams the loudest. That’s not the way we work. We’re going to do this based on evidence. We’re going to do this based on good partnerships. And we’re going to have some incredible successes as a result.”

During the 2025 legislative session, Morrisey signed a $5.28 billion general revenue budget bill for fiscal year 2026 beginning on July 1. That budget includes $100 million for road and bridge maintenance placed in the surplus section in the back of the budget, which will be paid out based on available surplus tax collections when fiscal year 2025 ends on June 30.

Morrisey said a list of current and future road and bridge projects would be posted at the DOT website by the end of the day Monday.