Posted on 06/08/2008 6:18:43 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Sunset Advisory Commission's scathing staff report on the Texas Department of Transportation, issued Tuesday, centers around one crucial statement: This agency has sunk so low in the eyes of the Legislature and the public that trust can only be restored through dramatic action.
"[T]weaking the status quo is simply not enough," says the report.
The prescribed solution is to abolish the five-member Texas Transportation Commission. The governor would appoint a single commissioner to run the department with oversight from a special committee of legislators. During the next four years, the Transportation Department would extensively revise its policies and procedures.
That's dramatic, all right. But is it really necessary?
Mistakes were made
You can sum up the department's problems in two words: toll roads.
In 2002, Gov. Rick Perry's Trans Texas Corridor proposal, aimed at improving Texans' mobility through a series of privately built toll roads, was new and unique. But the idea grew to a long list of proposals. The more that many Texans learned about the concept, the more they hated it.
Ric Williamson of Weatherford, as chairman of the Transportation Commission and with Perry's support, championed private toll roads as the only way that the state could get the money it needed to build essential roads -- right up until his death late last year. But, right or wrong, his powerful advocacy and his aggressive methods rubbed many people the wrong way.
By 2007, the Legislature imposed a moratorium on new private toll road contracts, with a handful of exceptions.
It didn't help when Williamson and the Transportation Department announced that the state had a $1.1 billion shortfall and would have to shift money away from rural road maintenance to urban road construction. Then, under questioning from a legislative committee, department officials said that was a mistake -- a bookkeeping error.
There's a solution
So things really don't look very good for the department and its governing commission. Their legislative and public opponents have, almost literally, gathered like an angry mob.
Fortunately, an orderly process is going on here. The Sunset Advisory Commission, created in 1977, reviews about 130 state agencies on a 12-year cycle. Tuesday's report, the result of months of work by sunset staff members, is but one early step.
The Transportation Department has filed a self-evaluation, and it will have a chance to respond to the staff report. The Sunset Commission, composed of five senators (including Kim Brimer of Fort Worth), five House members and two public members, will hold a hearing and take public testimony. That hearing is scheduled for July 15.
The commission can decide that the agency should simply go away, but that's unlikely. Usually, a bill is introduced in the next legislative session continuing the agency's operation, either along the lines of what the staff has suggested or on some different track that emerges in hearings or deliberations. Sunset bills usually become the subject of extensive legislative debate.
Don't get distracted
Sunset review has served Texas well during the past 31 years and has helped to improve state government. There is every reason to believe that the review of the Transportation Department will do the same.
It is far too early for the department's opponents to declare victory -- or for its supporters to feel defeated. This debate has a long way to go.
It's crucial for everyone involved to remember that this debate, however it is resolved, deals only with the administrative structure and procedures of the agency responsible for building Texas roads. Even if that agency were to go away, its job would remain and would have to be done somewhere in state government.
The more difficult and important question is how to pay for those roads. Let's not get so caught up in shuffling around the pieces of an administrative bureaucracy that we fail to face this significant problem of road costs and properly resolve it.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
BTTT
they made a big mistake 5 or 6 years ago, or longer, when they planned all of this stuff in secret among the governors’ cronies.
then, only later after they had what they wanted, it was presented to the public for review and to second.
but after the public looked at it, some of them got angry.
Understatement of the week!
....which means, of course, they screwed up the first time, and will have to find a "more effective" (sneaky-er) way to "explain the benefits" (cram it down our ignorant hick redneck Texas citizens throats) the next time...
...
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Governor is part of the problem. Anyone he appoints will not be trusted. Perry will do anything and everything to ensure the completion of this boondoggle.
"You can sum up the department's problems in two words: toll roads"
The socialists and the populists want their free roads and they are madder than hell that Perry and TxDot would try to impose toll roads on their God given and constitutional right to free roads.
i don’t know, you may be right, but i grew up in the sixties and think of
“freeways”.
raise the gas taxes to pay for them.
i lived in texas for over a year and watched this issue arise.
my observation was that the governor, his cronies, the san antonio contruction co, and the spanish toll management co were trying to pull this off with minimal public involvement.
the latter was what offended me.
A big part of the solution is to actually use the gas taxes for transit. Much of the money has been siphoned off by the legis to avoid raising taxes. Put the money back, and then take a long hard look at fixing the roads. If they want to do other things, then talk to us about raising taxes for those things. Don’t hide behind taking money from other sources.
“The socialists and the populists want their free roads”
Rather broad stroke you’ve painted there don’t you think?
I’d bet they’re mostly Conservative.
The legislature passed the legislation authorizing it. Of course they know you won't hold them responsible because they told you/us that they didn't really know what they were signing.
So are you a Reagan conservative and support using the private sector to build and operate these roads?
Or, do you subscribe to the Mondale/McGovern philosophy of letting the government do it?
but honestly,
do you think we should go back to the earlier paradigm of paying for roads by increased gas taxes at the pump,
or, should we make the users of tolls pay for the roads?
i can see arguments pro and con.
the gov and legislature did not want to incur the wrath of drivers by raising the gasoline tax.
not to mention that the gov and his cronies were invested in zachry and cintra.
all through 2004 and 05 in austin’s, houston’s, san antonio’s and dfw’s newspapers they said the gas tax was at a max.
There were two other bidders on the project, Fluor and Trans Texas Express. Additionally, Zachry has been the road construction company of choice for Texas for decades.
that’s not what i read in the papers.
His house burned down today.
Reagan is rolling over in his grave watching how this country has turned into a debtor nation.
I don’t think Pres. Reagan would have approved of the way Perry and his cronies set up these deal with foreign investors/operators despite the will of the people.
Maybe it is a premonition. Hope he takes thought of it.
In case you haven't heard, there is a well established world economy and capital is flowing all over the world. Where do you think NTTA gets their money?
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