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 Our Transportation Solutions Begin with Fixing DOT
by Tom Campbell
November 1, 2007
Three weeks ago leadership in the NC Department of Transportation was trying to make us believe that the McKinsey & Company consultant study report of their department was only going to be delivered orally, that there was to be no written report. The public was rightfully incensed.
Legislators then asked that the consultants appear before the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee to present their findings and were further incensed when told that there was a mix-up on dates and the consultants wouldn’t be at the meeting. Lawmakers practically ordered the company to appear at the next meeting.
Three weeks ago nothing was in writing concerning the consultant’s findings. Mysteriously, the consultant was able to assemble a 140 page report Wednesday that is one of the most damning evaluations of a major agency of state government ever released. Inflexible, unfocused, ineffective, and broken are the pictures one gets from reading the document.
Coming into even clearer focus is the arrogance, incompetence, and political interference rampant in DOT, and we now understand why our legislature didn’t do more to fund solutions to our transportation crisis. They simply don’t trust the leadership and the ability of DOT to manage what they now have. Our transportation crisis is more clearly stated as a crisis of confidence in DOT.
State Senator Clark Jenkins from Tarboro has become the leading legislative voice demanding change at DOT and who better to lead the charge? Jenkins served for 10 years on the DOT board before going to the Senate and he knows enough about the agency to know how things happen…or don’t. Jenkins is the ideal reformer. He doesn’t have to be in the legislature, is wealthy enough not to be influenced by anyone, and independent enough not to mind stepping on toes, even if they might be attached to the feet of powerful politicians.
He said as much when asked about the report’s findings. Jenkins told The News and Observer, “What they really need over there is a couple retirement parties.” A growing chorus is calling for firings in upper management echelons, starting with Secretary Lyndo Tippett.
How does the Secretary react to the survey completed by 9,000 employees, legislators, business leaders, and other government leaders? “You don’t know how you look until you get your picture took,” Tippett told The News and Observer, indicating that it took a .5 million survey for him to learn that his department was a mess. Many have tried telling Tippett this for years but he arrogantly refused to listen.
The next move is Governor Mike Easley’s. If he wants the legislature, DOT employees, and the rest of the state to believe there will be a genuine reform at DOT he must make a bold statement to that effect. But the 24 member commission appointed to study our transportation crisis now has the added task of dealing with a clearly broken DOT before they can address other transportation issues. |
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