SAN FRANCISCO - The Oregon Department of Transportation is facing major maintenance and construction challenges, following workforce reductions and lower gas tax revenues, according
The audit, released Tuesday, also found that short-term bond funding has increased ODOT's Highway Division workload in some parts of the state, requiring greater reliance on non-permanent workers.
The agency's long-term funding challenges come amid growing infrastructure and transportation needs.
"Oregon, like much of the country, faces a significant transportation infrastructure challenge," the audit said. "During the 1950s and 1960s, the country made a huge investment in highways and bridges, including Interstate 5 through Oregon. As these investments age, repair and replacement needs increase."
ODOT is responsible for constructing and maintaining the state's transportation system, which includes both federal and state highways and bridges.
As growth in federal and state gas tax revenues has slowed due to an increase in fuel-efficient cars, Congress and Oregon's Legislature have stepped in with more federal funds and state bond money.
The state has approved more than $3 billion in bond packages for transportation projects since 2001, leading to a highway construction program that has grown increasingly reliant on borrowed money. For 2013-2015, proceeds from bonds account for about 40% of the construction program's $1.9 billion budget.
"The increased reliance on bond funding will also lead to significant debt service over an extended time, reducing funding available for construction projects," the audit said. "Whenever bond proceeds run out, ODOT, Congress, the legislature or some combination of the three will need to find other ways to address infrastructure needs in the future."
The state's resource limitations, along with uncertainty of future funding, make long-term planning difficult, and as a result, ODOT began making workforce reductions in 2011. Despite an increasing workload, ODOT management committed to a 5% reduction in staff.
With growing infrastructure needs, and a smaller staff, the state faces possible delays in projects, increase in costs, and lower quality of construction, the audit said.
To address this, auditors said ODOT needs to change its workforce planning by identifying the critical skills and expertise needed, develop strategies to address gaps in these critical skills, and focus on training less experienced staff.
In a written response, ODOT said it agrees that it can improve its workforce planning efforts and plans to do so, but that the audit did not include data analysis to support some of its assertions. For example, the audit said ODOT is losing expertise, but did not provide an analysis of which skill sets are being lost, the ODOT response said.
"Having this data would be useful as we seek to improve workforce planning," Matthew Garrett, ODOT's director, said in the response.
