Past head of VDOT advocates downsizing 50% |
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dickboyd
New Slug Joined: 13 Nov 2004 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Posted: 15 Dec 2005 at 1:15pm |
When Democrats are in power, work on the road gets done by civil servants. Everyone complains about the lack of response. When the Republicans are in power, the civil servants are replaced with private sector contractors. Everyone complains about the lack of response. Where is the Commonwealth Transportation Board when you really need them?
Past head of VDOT advocates downsizing 50% Both Senate Transportation Committee Chair Marty Williams and former Virginia Transportation Commissioner Phil Shucet say substantial employee cuts at the giant agency may be in order. Shucet believes the employee count at the Department of Transportation can drop below 5,000, down from the current 9,000, without harming the agency's mission. Williams wants a thorough study before committing to cuts. But recently, in an interview with Virginian-Pilot reporter Christina Nuckols, he also cited below-5,000 as a possibility. Shucet, who knows the ins and outs of VDOT better than almost anyone after three years at the helm, has a clear vision for how to go about cutting. For starters, he sees no need to retain the large, in-house maintenance operation. "The idea of outsourcing maintenance functions is one that has been discussed with increasing interest," said Shucet in a recent letter to key senators, including Williams and Senate Finance Chair John Chichester. "I think it's the right thing to do." The biggest obstacle, aside from the almost certain protests of many VDOT workers, may be the bitter aftertaste from the state's last major downsizing at VDOT. In 1998, the legislative watchdog agency JLARC documented an 800 percent increase in engineering consulting work for VDOT over the previous decade. JLARC attributed much of the increased costs to a series of employee buyouts pushed by former Gov. George Allen in the mid-1990s. As talented and experienced professionals jumped ship for the private sector, the state wound up paying many former employees substantially more for their services after they joined private firms. http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=96884&ran=81193 dickboyd@aol.com |
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