THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502170017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
What kind of organization would collect $551,000 for a good cause and then just sit on the money?
Would you believe, your state government?
As staff writer Scott Harper recently reported, Virginia motorists, since 1992, have paid extra for colorful license plates to help finance state environmental projects, but the money has lain idle in two state-controlled funds. Nary a dime has been spent from $365,000 in a Bay Restoration Fund and $186,000 in a fund for conserving wildlife. When this fiscal year ends June 30, more than $200,000 will be added to the funds.
For the colorful plates, a motorist pays $25 a year and is told $15 of that amount will go to reserve accounts for environmental projects. Pamphlets for the ``Friend of the Bay'' plate tell motorists that an advisory committee will decide where the donations will go - but no such committee has been set up or designated.
With good reason, environmentalists fear the Allen administration will use the money not for needed new programs but to make up for its funding cuts in soil- and water-conservation districts around the state.
Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop proposed in December that 70 percent of the money go to soil- and water-conservation districts, even those far from the Bay. At the same time, she and Governor Allen want to cut $1.8 million from those districts' budgets. The remaining 30 percent, said a spokesmen for Dunlop's department, would go for ``larger, multijurisdictional projects'' - in other words, it would be spread around.
Allen administration officials have said the funds have gone unspent because of the change in administrations in Richmond and differences over how to spend the money.
Other money got spent, in spite of a change in administrations. And it's high time to decide how to spend the environmental money to do the most good. The money should be used to go forward in cleaning up the environment, not to keep the state from slipping back.
A bill sponsored by a host of Republicans, and backed by environmental groups, would force the state to spend $300,000 of the idle money over the next two years on projects beneficial to the Bay. In effect, the bill asks the state to honor its promise to license-plate buyers. Why a bill is needed to make the state keep its word is a mystery, but apparently one is.
People choose the good causes they'll support the same way they select the cars they'll buy: They want bang for the buck. Donors to the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia, for example, are told every $1 donation buys $11.92 food for the hungry. That's a big bang for the buck.
People buying the pretty license plates love the environment and seek to help it - and they deserve a bang for their bucks. They certainly deserve better than to have their money do nothing. A promise was made. The state ought to keep it. by CNB