Last fall, the Legislative Analyst praised Caltrans for moving quickly to utilize California’s share of federal Stimulus Funds for infrastructure. In just a few months, Caltrans had put out to bid contracts for 92% of the funds, which the Analyst called good progress. By contrast, local agencies were much slower, only issuing contracts for one-third of their share of the funds. Subsequently, Caltrans helped the local agencies so the federal funds weren’t diverted to other states.  

This month, the Analyst found that Caltrans is continuing to get projects out to construction on schedule. So, looking at Caltrans’ proposed budget for next year, the Analyst recommended that the Capital Outlay Support staff should be reduced by 15%! The primary reason given was that Caltrans was able to get its work done on time with three days of furloughs, so, the Analyst concluded, Caltrans must be overstaffed! 

The Legislature is not expected to reduce the staffing needed for the program and almost everyone who testified at a Legislative hearing on March 11 opposed the Analyst’s recommendation. One exception was ACEC, the organization formerly known as CELSOC which seeks to get more Caltrans work for its member firms through no bid contracts at twice the cost of using state engineers. ACEC called Caltrans “a huge and inefficient bureaucracy” which spends “too much money” on its employees’ salaries and pensions, rather than streets and box culverts. ACEC’s recommendation is to outsource most or all of Caltrans engineering work to private firms through no bid contracts at twice the cost.