Council Makes Recommendations to Revitalize TxDOT

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT) Restructure Council today outlined its recommendations for material, fundamental and lasting positive impacts on TxDOT's organizational effectiveness.

Noting that TxDOT has already implemented changes improving its operations, the Council presented its final report during a special meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission.

The Council's recommendations include:

• Changing TxDOT's senior leadership to set the stage for objectiveness, which is needed to implement initiatives such as a new strategic vision, continuous change, organizational structure, accountability and transparency.  The Council urged the Commission to address the need for new senior leadership at a pace and manner it considers to be in the best interest of TxDOT.
• Recasting outdated views and beliefs due to TxDOT's inability to recognize the need for self-correction and redirection.  Consideration should be given to developing additional values that encourage open-mindedness, innovation and behavior that supports the necessary changes within the department.
• Creating a new organizational structure that is better aligned with the TxDOT's mission, thereby improving work performance and creating a more efficient work environment.
• Increasing financial oversight and controls by consolidating all financial functions under the clearly defined authority of a chief financial officer.  This and other related financial recommendations should ensure sound and responsible financial management of a multi-billion dollar budget, as well as increase the standards of accountability and transparency.
• Investing in an enterprise-wide updated information technology system to replace the fragmented, independent systems that significantly limit flexibility and effectiveness of TxDOT operations.
• Elevating human resources as a strategic partner in senior leadership so that it can develop a well-planned approach to human resources management, thereby supporting the department's mission.
• Developing a comprehensive communication policy that is responsive and engages all stakeholders, which should result in repositioning TxDOT as an agency that is responsive, reliable and transparent.
• Continuing with improvements to streamline the environmental review process, apply refined right of way acquisition practices to more projects, proceed with an in-depth study into the use of in-house engineering and outside engineering consultants, and implement a field operations staffing plan.

Council recommendations on TxDOT

• Centralizing oversight of procurement functions, including the Historically Underutilized Businesses/Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program areas, so that more consistent policies and procedures, program objectives and measurements are set; thereby improving monitoring and compliance.

The Council encouraged the Commission to promptly begin implementation of these recommendations in a comprehensive and coordinated manner with the assistance of an outside professional change management firm.  The process of identifying and selecting such a firm should begin immediately, according to the report.

In developing its recommendations, the Council set up an online catalogue listing 647 recommendations contained in the most relevant reports examining TxDOT operations.  From this catalogue, the Council focused on the 191 recommendations from the Grant Thornton report and identified 62 of those as the highest priorities for TxDOT, in addition to a few other recommendations proposed by the Council.

All recommendations by the Council and its final report are available at txdot.gov.

The TxDOT Restructure Council was formed in July 2010 by the Texas Transportation Commission for the purpose of examining and extracting from the reports recommendations for the restructure, reform and modernization of TxDOT.  The three-member Council included Jay Kimbrough, David Laney and Howard Wolf.

For more information contact Gabriela Garcia, TxDOT Restructure Council, 512-463-9645.

SOURCE Texas Department of Transportation

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