Tulsa's Public Works Performance Audit reveals some major problems

[DowntownNow]

The Council was provided a copy of the Public Works Performance Audit by EMA in committee meeting yesterday.  The link to the Tulsa World story is here:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20081029_11_A11_hSomea781560

The reports itself as presented to Council is here:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/webextra/content/items/TulsaDraftPublicWorksAssessmentReportppt3.pdf

Reading the Tulsa World article itself gives a lot of insight into the report without needing to read it entirely until you want to sleep...its 52 pages.  It really expressed what so many in here and in Tulsa have been saying for years with regards to PWD, its leadership and the approaches taken to fix, maintain and improve our infrastructure.

Highlights:

• The audit states that long-term maintenance is provided by voter-approved funding; however, "this five-year funding is not adequate to meet Pavement Condition Index targets."  Although the voter-approved $452 million "Fix Our Streets" program is well-done and well-documented, "it is the default street maintenance program."

So already the latest streets package that was supposed to fix and increase by just a couple index points the PCI rating is failing.

• One finding indicated there is "an institutional aversion to change, whether it be within the city or the department.

No surprise there, Tulsans have been demanding change in the way PWD performs its functions for years and nothing happens.
[/list]

• Another finding suggests that the city leadership, constituents and the management of Public Works have dissimilar priorities, which has resulted in mismatched priorities

Here I have a fundamental problem with this one...the City's leadership and the Public Works Department work for the citizens...not supposed to be the other way around.  This is why we hold elections to approve funding for projects we say are needed to improve our quality of life and its up to our elected officials to ensure those projects move forward through direction to Public Works. 

• And then there is the litany of recommended changes for Public Works, many of which have been discussed in here and in the publi for years.  "Cascio said changes should be made within the Public Works Department, including a performance management program, automated time and attendance system, better communication, a plan to institute new technologies to develop performance measures, aligning organizational capacity with service delivery, and changing the department's management style of top down to a team-based approach.
  
  All designed to increase effective leadership, improve performance and efficiencies and eliminate waste...anyone think these will get implemented?

Throughout all this...the one factor that has remained constant has been Charles Hardt and the management of PWD that for 20 years has remained unchanged, unflinching in the way it conducts business and averse to change.  Based on this audit, Tulsa really needs to ask itself, can it afford Charles Hardt any longer at a salary of $172,000 +/- or is it time he goes and the rest of the PWD management get a shake up?

[Conan71]

This is one time I relish saying: "I told you so"

[shadows]

If the audit as reported by the TW is correct with tongue-in-cheek it indicated that the city is over managed and they wanted to be very vague about accusing the mayor and the council of mismanagement . The citizens realize that street maintenance has been prioritized within God Little Acres' on their pet projects.  51%

There is a bright side to the audit as with the burn plant opening up it will be a short haul to dispose of the $240,000, 52 page look into the city operations. 

The citizens of Tulsa in less of a week will go to the polls to make a choice for a person that will have the department heads shake hands and introduce themselves.  They should hope that apathy does not control their election.     

[Conan71]

The situation at public works could be enough to make me a single-issue voter if one of the candidates would come out in favor of a massive shake up of PW that would remove, re-assign, or totally disrupt the existing power structure in Public Works.

[buckeye]

Something with which to chew on my councilman's ear.

[Wrinkle]

Street 'maintenance' just flat isn't done around here. Primarily, that's due to it supposedly being a General Fund budget line item, which has been cut to zero over the years so that money could be spent on other things. Road work has become viewed as only possible via the Third Penny projects, which means they have to have a capital improvement aspect to their specs.

I was trying to remember the last time I saw anyone doing crack sealing on any city street. Think it may have been right in front of my house about 1985.

[sgrizzle]

Street 'maintenance' just flat isn't done around here. Primarily, that's due to it supposedly being a General Fund budget line item, which has been cut to zero over the years so that money could be spent on other things. Road work has become viewed as only possible via the Third Penny projects, which means they have to have a capital improvement aspect to their specs.

I was trying to remember the last time I saw anyone doing crack sealing on any city street. Think it may have been right in front of my house about 1985.

Our current "street maintenance" consists mainly of following our contracted crews and fixing their work.

I keep seeing more and more reasons to quit bidding our street work out to the lowest common denominator. We have a good deal of capital now, we have equipment sitting idle, let the city do it. The county does their own and they do it at roughly half the cost. Plus, they do a better job because doing a poor job just means more work on themselves.

[Wrinkle]

The city should be doing at least its' own maintenance. Third Penny projects could be bid yet. But, that process needs an overhaul so that there can be more competition and allow out of city contractors to bid.

As it is, only one or two companies currently get virtually all the work.

Imagine stormwater, water supply, et all suffer the same condition.

[Conan71]

Our current "street maintenance" consists mainly of following our contracted crews and fixing their work.

I keep seeing more and more reasons to quit bidding our street work out to the lowest common denominator. We have a good deal of capital now, we have equipment sitting idle, let the city do it. The county does their own and they do it at roughly half the cost. Plus, they do a better job because doing a poor job just means more work on themselves.

That should come as no surprise that the county can do their own maintenance at 1/2 the cost.  If you contract out to a for-profit company, they are going to want to...get this...make a profit.  Wow, what a concept!  The city should be doing it's own repairs.

[shadows]

Our current "street maintenance" consists mainly of following our contracted crews and fixing their work.

I keep seeing more and more reasons to quit bidding our street work out to the lowest common denominator. We have a good deal of capital now, we have equipment sitting idle, let the city do it. The county does their own and they do it at roughly half the cost. Plus, they do a better job because doing a poor job just means more work on themselves.

Street maintenance crews do not contribute millions of dollars to city campaigns whereas contractors do off times behind screens.  Did not the whistle blower on PW prove to any one how the city bidding is operated?  Didn't one bid contractor agreed to pay almost a million dollars to stop any investigation of the bidding process?  The ratio on the streets is one worker to about every 25 orange barrels. 

The bridge over the channel was repaired in a little over a week when the barges hit it.  1200 feet of a Tulsa' street can consume six months to repair.           

[Conan71]

Street maintenance crews do not contribute millions of dollars to city campaigns whereas contractors do off times behind screens.  Did not the whistle blower on PW prove to any one how the city bidding is operated?  Didn't one bid contractor agreed to pay almost a million dollars to stop any investigation of the bidding process?  The ratio on the streets is one worker to about every 25 orange barrels. 

The bridge over the channel was repaired in a little over a week when the barges hit it.  1200 feet of a Tulsa' street can consume six months to repair.           

Actually Shadows, it was more like 90 days to repair the bridge, which still was an amazing accomplishment.

[Hoss]

That should come as no surprise that the county can do their own maintenance at 1/2 the cost.  If you contract out to a for-profit company, they are going to want to...get this...make a profit.  Wow, what a concept!  The city should be doing it's own repairs.

Didn't the city at some point do their own repairs on the roads?  I'm sure it was back when I was a child, but I do seem to remember it.

Edit: Meant to ask 'didn't the city at some point do their own road projects'

[Townsend]

Street maintenance crews do not contribute millions of dollars to city campaigns whereas contractors do off times behind screens.  Did not the whistle blower on PW prove to any one how the city bidding is operated?  Didn't one bid contractor agreed to pay almost a million dollars to stop any investigation of the bidding process?  The ratio on the streets is one worker to about every 25 orange barrels. 

The bridge over the channel was repaired in a little over a week when the barges hit it.  1200 feet of a Tulsa' street can consume six months to repair.           

It's "Oft times" as in often.  And starting your sentences with "did not" or "Do not", "has not" makes for sentence skipping and makes your posts less readable.

Just a heads up.

[shadows]

Guess I stretch the truth some times but it was an engineering marvel to rebuild the super structure and pour the concrete deck in such a short time.   I was under the belief that the deck which would equal pouring a street was done in a week and opened up for traffic. The time span on curing of the concrete on the deck drew my attention.     

[shadows]

It's "Oft times" as in often.  And starting your sentences with "did not" or "Do not", "has not" makes for sentence skipping and makes your posts less readable.

Just a heads up.

Thanks for the advise on the passive mode I some times use.  English language is a hard language as spelling of a word can be used to mean different thing and meanings of a word sometimes is in relation to a previous words or following words. In the future I will watch out for the usage of passive modes like Shakespeare and the writers used in writing  the epistles of the Bible.