The U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) issued a new report illustrating a key workforce issue facing state departments of transportation. The report found that states are hiring outside engineering consultants due to a lack of internal staffing.
Based on a GAO-administered survey of state DOTs in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, the report tracks the state DOT use of engineering consultants for assistance with federal-aid highway construction projects.
According to the AASHTO Journal, the survey found the most important factors affecting state DOT decisions to use such consultants relates to the “size and skills” of their workforces.
“State DOT officials reported using engineering consultants on a variety of federal-aid highway construction projects, such as for bridge replacement,” GAO noted in its report.
Half of state DOTs reported they spent at least 60 percent of their engineering and design-related expenditures for these projects on engineering consultants. Nearly all state DOTs (50 of 52) reported workforce size and skills were very or moderately important in their decisions on whether to use engineering consultants.
States are trying to increase the ranks of skilled infrastructure workers by offering community college-based training programs and holding job fairs for soon-to-be-released prisoners.
A panel discussion held during the 2021 virtual spring meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials went over the ways state DOTs are trying to improve their recruitment and retention.
Victoria Sheehan, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and AASHTO’s 2020-2021 president, moderated the event. Sheehan noted those strategies would require changes to some traditional state DOT workforce practices.
“We have to emphasize that all employees at a state DOT are part of the same machine – that the engineers and maintenance crews cannot do their jobs without accountants, administrators, human resource staff, and others,” Sheehan said.
“Going forward we must make sure to create a culture empathetic to balancing what [employees] are facing at home and facing at work. While that may be different from state DOT practices of old, we should still seek to retain the pride and camaraderie associated with our core mission: to build a transportation system that serves all and provides access to opportunity for all.”
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Sources: AASHTO Journal, U.S. GAO