Major audit: TxDOT must change its 'singular, deeply entrenched culture'

[white cloud]

3:52 PM Thu, May 27, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Michael Lindenberger/Reporter Bio | E-mail | News tips


The Texas Department of Transportation should significantly alter its leadership structure, reshuffle its executive ranks and reduce the role engineers play in leading the sprawling agency.

That's according to a new -- and at 628 pages, exhaustive -- audit of its management and structure by the accounting firm Grant Thornton. The audit, available in full here, was released Wednesday by the department after the accounting firm revealed its findings.

I am still working through the details, and there are a lot of them. But key recommendations from the audit focus strongly on the nature of the leadership of the department, which has been under fire in Austin and elsewhere for years, often because of resentment by lawmakers and others that see it as a tool of Gov. Rick Perry's campaign to add toll roads throughout Texas.
http://transportationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/05/major-audit-txdot-must-change.html

[trungpa ricochet]

1. They answer to no one

It's along story, but when I lived in Houston, TxDOT was "considering" expanding the Interstate where we lived, possibly condemning my house and many others in the neighborhood. This blighted the area for years while they were "considering". Happily, we moved away from the US while they were dithering. TxDOT is a monster. In Texas, public transportation is always voted down. People there all want 30-lane freeways instead. It's insane.:crazy: