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By Bob Campbell
Midland Reporter-Telegram
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
TxDOT's Odessa District threatened by revamping
Department of Transportation has begun a statewide reorganization to move 20 percent of its Odessa District staff to a new West Regional Support Center in Lubbock.
ODESSA -- In an initiative seen as politically defensive by some state legislators, the Texas Department of Transportation has begun a statewide reorganization to move 20 percent of its Odessa District staff to a new West Regional Support Center in Lubbock.
A spokesman said Tuesday it "is reorganizing its support services for design, construction and maintenance in 25 districts across the state" at centers in Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Lubbock.
None of the offices like Odessa's will be closed, said TxDOT spokesman Glen Larum of Odessa, but eliminating job duplication and saving money have become imperative.
District Engineer Lauren Garduño is on a six-month assignment to get the Lubbock center up to run district offices in Amarillo, Childress, Abilene, El Paso, San Angelo, Lubbock and Odessa.
"Consolidating functions will result in a savings of about $35 million per year statewide," Garduño said. "It is also a response to major changes in our business model in recent years.
"A lot of the work we do now reaches across district lines, especially with today's emphasis on corridor management."
Explaining the regionalization will include right-of-way and environmental departments, he said, "This will make our planning more transparent to the public because they will only have to check in with one office to find out what's happening up and down an entire corridor."
Garduño said the agency will work hard to see that local employees do not lose their jobs.
"Some will remain at their current jobs under the 'virtual office' concept, some will move into positions at regional headquarters and some into other local TxDOT jobs that open as the result of attrition. It is possible there may be new people hired in regional positions if a qualified TxDOT employee is not identified for the job; but our preference is to fill as many positions as possible with existing TxDOT employees."
State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, said the plan "may be preemptive" to ameliorate the department's "sunset review" during the 81st Legislature next year, but it should be beneficial regardless of the motive.
He said TxDOT officials' admission that they had "lost" $1 billion last year flummoxed legislators to whom they had complained about insufficient highway construction funding.
Citing that frustration, House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland has ordered the State Auditor's Office to investigate the department and determine if its accounting and management practices are sound.
"TxDOT has been remarkably unresponsive to the public and Legislature," said Seliger. "Clearly, they have a problem managing money when they lose track of $1 billion. They've become what all bureaucracies become; their primary occupation is the perpetuation of the bureaucracy."
However, he said the state will still need an agency to build and maintain highways, roads and bridges after 2009. "I'm always concerned when someone moves state jobs out of an area," Seliger said.
"Who is going to benefit and why? Why not consolidate things in Odessa? There needs to be a cultural change and likely changes in the paradigm and business models in TxDOT. If they think they have a better, more efficient, more economical way of doing things, we need to be open-minded about it."
Larum said the reorganization will affect 40 of the Odessa District's 100 home office employees with 20 moving to Lubbock. "This restructuring should be invisible to the public eye," he said.
"We will not change the services we provide over 18,000 square miles in Andrews, Crane, Martin, Upton, Winkler, Ward, Loving, Reeves, Terrell, Pecos, Ector and Midland counties. We'll try not to lay anyone off, but eventually over time, it will probably mean a reduction in the number of employees in the district office to about 80.
"It should be just a matter of matching people to available jobs. Some will be offered the chance to apply for any openings in Lubbock and some may be transferred there. We have the big picture sketched out, but the devil is in the details."
Larum said Garduño is already working at the Lubbock district office, where there could be new construction or space could be provided for the support center.
Comparing the initiative to one by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission that established a regional call center south of Midland International Airport, Larum said it is something every business or governmental agency should periodically do.
"The Legislature will have a lot to say about it in the sunset review process, but every business should step back and look at its business model," he said. "If the model is out of date with technology and the changing landscape in the business world, it should adapt."
Larum said staffing at the local county shops will not be reduced.