Virginia could take a hard hit from planned Defense Department cutbacks. The state’s governor and congressional delegation reported little satisfaction after a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Gates has announced plans to shut down the Joint Forces Command, which employs nearly 6,000 people, most of them based in Norfolk. His order to cut support contract funding by nearly 30% will take a bite out of Northern Virginia’s contracting industry.

After the Nov. 24 meeting at the Pentagon, Gov. Robert McDonnell said some of the jobs at JFCOM might stay in the Norfolk area, including the command’s modeling and simulation functions. “It could be from a name change to a significant pare-back,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “Until the ink is dry, this is still a moving target.”

A DOD spokesman said the department will consider the Norfolk area as a possible permanent home for the Africa Command, currently based in Germany.

Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating the use of front companies in major federally funded construction projects, the New York Times reported.

The newspaper said the investigation focuses on whether large contractors evaded subcontracting requirements under the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program and a similar program for woman- and minority-owned contractors run by New York City. The Times said the targets of the civil investigation are Schiavone Construction Co. and Skanska USA Civil Northeast. Both contractors are working on billion-dollar projects in the city.

The Times said the alleged schemes involved using woman- and minority-owned subcontractors as fronts so the prime contractors could book revenue that should have gone to small businesses under the federal and city subcontracting programs.

An attorney for Skanska said the company “is committed fully to complying with laws and regulations governing the use of minority business enterprises.” An attorney for Schiavone declined to comment, the newspaper said.

MicroTech LLC, a systems integrator based in Vienna, VA, tops the annual ranking of 8(a) contractors published by Washington Technology magazine. The magazine said MicroTech had $172 million in prime contracts in 2010.

Catapult Technology of Bethesda, MD, ranked second with almost $104 million.

2011 may be a boom year for makers of street signs. ABC News reports the Federal Highway Administration has ordered every local government in America to buy new street signs that are easier to read by January 2012.

The directive says the signs must have letters at least six inches high, instead of the current four inches, on all roads with speed limits above 25 miles per hour. And new signs must not be in all-capital letters, but caps and lower case. The feds say that’s easier to read.

ABC said Milwaukee will have to spend nearly $2 million at a time when the city is already dealing with budget cuts. Sparsely populated Dinwiddie County, VA, will spend about $10 for every man, woman and child.

The directive is in new regulations called the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. ABC said the regs were written under the Bush administration.