The U.S. Division of Transportation must recruit, develop and retain an expanded employees to supervise the implementation of $660 billion in funding for packages licensed underneath the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act, whereas coping with provide chain points, rising costs and a scarcity of the expert labor required to construct the numerous capital tasks the IIJA will allow, in accordance with the DOT’s inspector basic, Eric Soskin, who issued this warning in a report back to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Oct. 5.
The sheer variety of infrastructure tasks the DOT must handle is mind-boggling. Over the subsequent 12 months, states, territories, tribes and native governments will start work to enhance 65,000 miles of highway and 1,500 bridges; put money into 600 airport infrastructure tasks; buy 15,000 new buses, ferries and subway vehicles; and purchase 75 new locomotives and 73 intercity prepare units for Amtrak. On prime of that, the administration’s five-year objective is to construct half one million electrical automobile charging stations.
The transportation division is actively hiring to fulfill the calls for of the infrastructure legislation, with a objective of including 1,700 staff over the subsequent 5 years. However state and native governments, which apply for and obtain IIJA funds, “are dealing with historic shortages of employees with experience in essential areas, akin to auditing, procurement, and acquisitions,” the report says.
Labor shortages lengthen to the development trade, significantly in expert trades. That might have an effect on the flexibility of grant recipients to finish tasks on time and on finances. A 2021 report issued by the Nationwide Infrastructure Advisory Council discovered that “the workforce growth system in the USA lacks the coordination, information, and strategic human capital administration mandatory to make sure a talented workforce for important infrastructure.”
Inflation typically ends in modifications to development contracts to account for rising prices, which may additionally have an effect on the mission schedule, the Workplace of the Inspector Normal’s report states. It concludes that “rising costs of important development supplies will doubtless blunt the affect of IIJA investments.”
Administrative points will even problem the DOT, with the report noting that the infrastructure legislation appropriated funds for 15 new discretionary grant packages and made important modifications to current packages. Primarily based on the division’s prior work, each the OIG and the Authorities Accountability Workplace discovered that the DOT might battle to offer adequate course to grant candidates, recipients and program employees whereas making certain that they adhere to DOT tips, insurance policies and procedures.
The report calls out the Federal Freeway Administration and Federal Transit Administration as needing to evaluate additions and revisions to statewide transportation enchancment packages and native transportation enchancment packages.
“Because the Division is conscious, the quantity of IIJA funds, coupled with the creation of latest packages and priorities, current a variety of important implementation and oversight challenges,” Soskin wrote in his memo to Buttigieg.
Chief amongst these challenges, the report says, is mitigating elevated dangers of fraud and waste. The IIJA requires that at the very least 10% of funds the DOT spends on floor transportation, transit and freeway security analysis and growth go to deprived enterprise enterprises, which have typically been used as fronts for non-DBE companies and pass-through schemes.
On a constructive word, the OIG credit the DOT with acknowledging the dangers and challenges its report identifies and for taking steps to fulfill the calls for positioned on it by the IIJA.
The report urges the DOT to strengthen its threat administration, be inventive and adaptable in coping with stakeholders and keep concentrate on steady enchancment of its processes.