Department of Transportation

Region 4 Management of Selected Transportation Maintenance Activities

The Transportation Maintenance division within the Department of Transportation (Department) is responsible for maintaining the infrastructure of the State’s highway system. This includes maintaining pavement, bridges, and signs; and implementing a winter snow and ice control program. These tasks are done by workers at residencies located throughout the State. We examined whether Transportation Maintenance employees in Region 4 were deployed and used efficiently and found several ways that the Department can better utilize its employees to be more productive and provide better service. For example, highway maintenance workers typically spend about 30 minutes at the residency before going out to their assigned work site and 30 minutes at the residency at the end of the day. We do not believe there is a need for all maintenance workers to spend an hour each day at the residency. If indirect time could be reduced by just 25 percent, Region 4 could save about $96,000 each summer season.

In addition, we found that Region 4 allocates its annual maintenance appropriations to each residency based primarily on lane miles, regardless of the highway and bridge conditions within each residency. We believe that allocations by both the Department and Regions should be based more extensively on the highway and bridge conditions. This would ensure that the highways and bridges that are in the worst condition are attended to first, regardless of residency location. We made several recommendations for the Department to strengthen its oversight of Transportation Maintenance employees.

For a complete copy of Report 2008-S-172 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.