Committee To Check TxDOT's Finances

February 5, 2008

KXAN

Is the Texas Department of Transportation lying about their state of finances, or is it really short on cash?

The Senate Finance Committee is holding a hearing to determine how much money TxDOT really has.

For months now, TxDOT has stood by their claim that they simply don't have enough money to complete projects in the Central Texas area.

Recently, however, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst spoke out against the agency, questioning their claims. That's just one of the many reasons the heads at TxDOT are being grilled.

Recently, the legislature passed $3 billion in highway bonds, got voter approval for $5 billion in obligation bonds, and there's still about $1.3 billion available to the agency for projects.

Despite all of that money, projects not just in Austin but around the state have been cut, and construction on many current projects has stopped altogether.

TxDOT said they don't have money to pay for the projects and will have a $3.6 billion shortfall for projects by the year 2015.

Just about every senator on the finance committee criticized TxDOT and said the agency has no credibility, especially because if officials at TxDOT knew a financial crisis was coming, then they should have alerted senators to the problems during the last legislative session.

Many senators agreed that a state audit is needed to examine what exactly is going on within the agency.

"I feel that it's very important that as quickly as we possibly can," said Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, "that we get the State Auditor's Office in there and that we have them begin an audit, and the first step would be to check those internal controls, so that we know whether we're getting reliable information or not."

Many senators believe that claiming the agency is short on cash is just a tactic to build more toll roads.

Dewhurst wrote a letter to Tx-DOT's chairwoman to state his concerns about numbers he said do not add up.

In his letter, Dewhurst said "I am concerned the forecasting sheet used to produce that number does not show the complete financial picture."

Dewhurst said it appears TxDOT did not factor in more than $9 billion in various types of bonds when projecting the shortfall.

Tuesday's hearing is far from over. Testimony is expected to last until the end of the day.

The likely next step will be an audit. And even the heads at TxDOT said they would welcome it.