Audit criticizes funding program for Colorado roads, bridges
Critics who have
accused Colorado’s FASTER transportation-fee program of being a tax in
disguise and of paying for projects requested by people with connections
aren’t likely to back down on their contentions after Monday’s release
of a state audit on the six-year-old program.
The Colorado
Office of the State Auditor found numerous problems with the
controversial program, which uses fees paid by motorists on vehicle
registrations and rental cars to fund road and bridge repairs and
transit projects throughout the state. Colorado Department of Transportation officials who oversee the program agreed to comply with all of the recommendations that affect their department.
Problems discovered by the audit include:
- Transportation officials are spending money on bridges that are ranked as lower-safety priorities over some that are higher on the list without providing any explanation as to why.
- State officials also are over-budgeting many of the bridge projects and taking more than a year to close them out, leaving money unavailable for other projects on the to-do list.
- CDOT leaders are using some of the road-safety fee revenues for projects that are not directly tied to construction or maintenance of roads, concerning some legislators that there is not a direct link between the fee and its usage, which is more indicative of a general tax.
- CDOT disbanded a citizens’ oversight committee on road-safety spending in 2013 after complaining that it was inefficient, despite the FASTER law that was passed in 2009 requiring that such a committee exist.
“The audit
confirms some of the criticisms and concerns that were expressed against
the 2009 legislation, particularly that the dollars are fungible,” said
state Sen. Chris Holbert,
a Parker Republican and member of the Legislative Audit Committee that
heard a report on the findings. “There’s supposed to be a distinction
between the tax and fee revenue ... It’s particularly frustrating that
we don’t have control over those fee dollars, and there seems to be no
repercussions [for CDOT].”
The CDOT
officials who spoke Monday at the committee hearing were, on the whole,
almost a completely new group of officials than those who implemented
the program beginning in 2010. But they offered some defense for their
policies in addition to pledging to implement the reform
recommendations.
For example, deputy executive director Mike Lewis
said that some lower-priority bridges jumped ahead of structures with
greater safety concerns because the environmental permitting for the
higher-priority structures would take longer and CDOT wanted to move
ahead on some rebuilds. Also, even the road-safety projects that didn’t
involve construction that were funded by FASTER dollars had overall
connections to the planning of future projects, Lewis and others said.
Rep. Dianne Primavera,
D-Broomfield, warned that some state residents already think that
funded road projects are chosen by political connections, and she warned
CDOT to be transparent about its reasoning for choosing certain bridges
and stretches of road.
Kathy Connell,
chairwoman of the Colorado Transportation Commission, said the new
leadership at CDOT was thankful for what occasionally was a critical
audit from the state.
“We are
determined to be more transparent,” Connell told the committee. “I think
it was so helpful for us to be able to have something to simplify very
complex processes.”
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