Lawmaker seeks audit for NDOT

Wednesday, April 11, 2001 | 11:27 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Suggesting that Clark County is being shortchanged in highway construction funds, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus called for an audit Tuesday of the state Transportation Department.

The audit would focus on how the department determines which projects are selected for construction.

Titus, D-Las Vegas, told the Senate Transportation Committee she wants to make sure there "is good policy and analysis and not bad politics" involved in choosing which jobs will be done. And she wants to know why certain projects are delayed.

For example, she said, Southern Nevada freeways are already overloaded with traffic as they are being built, but the Transportation Department is moving ahead with plans for a freeway segment south of Reno that would serve only a fraction of the cars.

Outside the hearing, Titus wondered what politician the Reno freeway segment would be named after.

But Deputy Transportation Director Jeff Fontaine said the department follows the federal guidelines in judging what projects should go forward and it consults with local government. He said the department welcomes an audit.

Titus, who gained the endorsement of Sens. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and Lawrence Jacobsen, R-Minden, said it's not a north-south battle because one of the freeway projects that was delayed is the Carson City bypass.

Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, said one project in his district took four years to complete and "that was not a big project."

Titus and Jacobsen questioned the qualifications and background of the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and controller to sit on the Transportation Board, along with three appointees of the governor.

Jacobsen said that if the staff "can snow the higher-ups, that's the way to do it."

He said he attended one Transportation Board meeting that lasted only nine minutes.

Titus said the elected officials are a rubber stamp for the department, which has an annual budget of about $750 million and 1,700 employees.

Amodei, concerned about getting "full cooperation" from the department, said he has been told that some employees have been encouraged to stay away from legislators with their complaints.

Fontaine told the committee there "is no policy to suppress the openness of the staff of NDOT."

"There is no policy to stone wall," he said.

But he said the department doesn't like the idea it will have to supply $10,000 to the legislative auditors' office for part of its costs.

Committee Chairman Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, suggested the $10,000 won't break the back of an agency that spends $750 million a year.

The committee will vote on the bill later.