Morale, direction are concerns at agency
BOISE – An internal Idaho Transportation Department study that included 60 interviews with employees since May has found problems with communication and morale, and concern over the state agency’s direction.
For three months, Darrell Manning, former Transportation Department director and ex-state budget director, worked without a contract to scrutinize the agency whose current director, Dave Ekern, oversees $700 million in roads spending.
The Transportation Board, to whom Ekern reports, asked for the study, Manning said.
According to his 16-page report, received through a state public records request by the Associated Press, Manning said communication between the state Transportation Board and the department should be improved. “Some board members think there are surprises in the board agenda,” he wrote.
In addition, employees believe “too little positive feedback” comes from management, Manning wrote. There’s an “unusual amount of fear” among employees over the department’s changing role – especially since the agency took on the $1.2 billion “Connecting Idaho” road-building plan, according to Manning.
“They are changing the way they’re creating projects,” Manning told the AP in an interview Monday. “That brings uncertainty – employees are always fearful of change.”
The plan departs from Idaho’s pay-as-you-go method of financing roads projects, instead selling bonds to start projects more quickly to avoid inflation.
Some state lawmakers have expressed concern that repaying the bonds with future federal highway money could take cash away from projects that are part of the Transportation Department’s regular construction schedule.
Idaho has awarded a contract worth as much as $43 million to two private companies to manage and engineer the first phase of “Connecting Idaho.”
Some department employees feel as if their own skills aren’t being utilized, Manning said Monday, though he declined to cite specific examples of their concerns.
He also wouldn’t give details of a separate, verbal presentation on personnel issues that he alluded to in the study. He made the presentation during a July 21 executive session of the Idaho Transportation Board at a meeting in Coeur d’Alene.
He did say he found “overwhelming support” for the seven-member board among the department’s 1,750 staff members.
Ekern, director since 2003, hasn’t had a chance to review the study with the Transportation Board, and declined through spokeswoman Mollie McCarty to comment.
The board undertook a similar review of previous Transportation Department Director Dwight Bower, she said.
Manning said his study’s cost was “minimal” and that his role was similar to other volunteer oversight work he’s done for state government over the last 15 years.
Agency spokesman Jeff Stratten said Manning will be reimbursed only for expenses.
Gov. Jim Risch, after taking office in June, replaced Transportation Board Chairman Chuck Winder with tire-dealership owner Frank Bruneel.
After Bruneel assumed board leadership, Manning briefed him on his work.
“It’ll serve as a valuable resource for the board to evaluate the well-being of the department, as far as the functioning of employees,” Bruneel told the AP. “Any organization always likes to have an evaluation – any organization has room for improvements.”
Bruneel is still studying Manning’s findings, and declined to immediately say what changes, if any, might result.
Manning, a former state lawmaker who has served in different roles under two Democratic and three Republican governors, said his study didn’t reveal a crisis at the department.
“I’m not saying there is a negative environment,” Manning said. “People always desire more feedback. That’s pretty common, no matter where you would go and do such a study.”