The Governor’s Commission to Reform the Department of Transportation met Friday to discuss two important working group reports and outline their direction in reporting to the Governor. The meeting was recorded by CTN, although I don't see it on the schedule just yet.
The Commission had a December 1, 2007 deadline for reporting to the Governor; however, they have pushed that deadline back to December 17 to accommodate the fact that they have had to hold more public meetings than anticipated.
Rather than attempting to review and reformulate the state’s transportation plan, the Commission will be looking at the organization of DOT and how it can change the “culture of fear” that the Commission found permeates the much-maligned organization.
The Working Group on People and Culture (see report) talked with DOT employees and conducted a survey of employees and a sample (about 15%) of contractors, including ACEC/CT members. The report notes that over one-third of DOT employees will be eligible for retirement within 5 years. This is on top of a crippling loss of experienced staff during the Rowland administration. Recruiting engineers and management needs to be a top priority at DOT. The Committee also wants to the Governor to look at how the state’s university system can do a better job of providing DOT and others with more engineers and other technical professionals.
The Working Group also recommends the Department adopt specific goals and make progress reporting on those goals available on their website. (See Virginia DOT as an example: http://www.virginiadot.org/about/cj_organizing.asp .) The Department should also look at other best practices as outlined by AASHTO and the TRB.
The Working Group recommends that the DOT establish a Leadership Council to work on leadership development, communications and staffing issues. The DOT should also develop a system of continuous improvement and commit resources for training and knowledge capture of the workforce.
DOT Commissioner Gina McCarthy, who is a Commission member, made a rather bizarre comment that the Commission look at the whole process of work flow and how contractors make profit from extending projects as much as possible. This was strange because the DEP is blamed as a cause of many delays for DOT projects. Most contractors (which include design professionals as well as construction contractors) lose money if the project is delayed.
The Working Group on Organization and Procedures (see report) is recommending that the DOT establish a “chief operating officer” who can manage the internal processes of the Department while the Commissioner is busy with interfacing with the Governor, General Assembly, other departments and the public. The working group supports the Department’s plan to split the Engineering and Highway Bureau into two separate bureaus.
The Working Group does not recommend splitting up the Department into separate department or authorities for mass transit or airports.
The Department should begin a complete redesign of its business practices. The Commission was overwhelmed by small businesses (and some large) that would not do business with the DOT because they could not be paid reliably. Better business processes will also encourage more small and minority businesses to work with DOT.
The Working group emphasized the need for transparency that ACEC/CT has strongly recommended. They also expressed concern that the QBS process deprives the state of the benefits of cost competition—a perception that we will have to address.
DOT staff in the field must be given the responsibility and protection to make decisions and resolve disputes.
