Oregon DOT Audit Gives Mixed Review

Oregon commissioned a study from the consulting group, McKinsey, which finds that while many of the Oregon Department of Transportation's (ODOT) construction projects were above the standards of other departments around the nation, the state is also wasting money. "Certain, mostly small projects managed by the transportation agency run late and over-budget, costing taxpayers millions of dollars," Gordon R. Friedman reports for the Oregonian.

The report finds that part of the problem comes from the department’s relationships with the consultants they used, "Insufficient project management, inaccurate cost predictions and being too ready to agree with consultants leaves some projects up to 90 percent over-budget, auditors found," Friedman writes. Ironically, part of the problem with the project management comes not from a lack of oversight, but from different departments with different objectives creating goals that didn't always complement each other. On the positive side, the report also found, "ODOT is a national standout when it comes to actual road quality, auditors said, and spends less per-mile to build roads than comparable states. But the agency then wastes money when it paves and repaves roads," Friedman reports.