Talk about a morality booster... :) :)

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It is widely expected among the DOT folks that Sonny Perdue plans to appoint Gena Evans as the new Secretary of Transportation once power is given over to Purdue, Casey Cagle, and the Speaker. The rather corrupt way our transportation funds are allocated will continue. I have no faith in Evans to be in charge of this, especially since her experience is NOT IN TRANSPORTATION. Once she took office, she gave Purdue what he wanted by equating the DOT's funding methods to bad accounting, and freezing projects large and small across the state, contributing the the economic slowdown. Now Purdue, Evans and Cagle (Richardson was given a bit of a bone on this one) will have complete control. With Cagle's likely election as the next Governor, expect Evans, with her preachy and hypocritical management style, to be in power over something she has no business managing for a long time to come. She needs to stay at her lake house in Alabama.

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was any reason given for the firing?

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Perdue has totally been asleep at the wheel on transportation issues in Georgia. Why should we have any confidence in his new plan since he hasn't done squat about transportation in 6 years?

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This was a much needed move by the Transportation Board. Evans was apparently brought in for one reason. To break the DOT, once thought to be the most powerful branch of Government in Georgia because of the preceived lack of accountability to the people. With Purdue's long history as a State Employee and political Capitol Hiller, he was eager to change that as Governer. He seiged the opportunity when given by planting this poor unsuspecting woman in this position. She is not an engineer by was preceived as a Manager that would be able to "Clean House" What a flop and failure, and not the DOT will be forever in attempting to recover from this awful mess.

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Good riddance. GDOT has problems but she did not seem to an effective solution. I remember when she sent almost every district office downtown basically to listen to her explain how her position was not related to her (at the time)boyfriend. Good grief, vanloads of people form all over had to suffer through that. GDOT has good people and does a good job considering what they have to deal with, but there is plenty of fat to be trimmed.

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Dear Lawmaker, There appears to be a campaign to destroy the Georgia Department of Transportation. Georgia as a whole is wrestling with declining revenues including transportation taxes and increasing transportation needs brought on by Georgia‘s attractiveness as a place to work and live. Georgia DOT has not had its funding methods increased since 1979 when the State Legislature allowed the state sales tax on motor fuel (3 cents) to go to the Department. In fact the popular LARP program started in 1979 with $29 million dollars and is the same size today without any inflationary increases. If the gasoline tax had been indexed for inflation, it would be 43 cents per gallon today. If the state budget had grown with the rate of inflation and unfunded Washington mandates not included, it would be $3.5 billion instead of $20 billion. There are critics that say Georgia DOT is broken and unable to provide quality transportation infrastructure. One of the solutions offered to improving transportation in Georgia is to reduce the size of Georgia DOT and reduce the number of projects planned for construction in the future. It is a good move to rid the program of politically generated projects that are too expensive and don’t solve transportation needs. However, regarding the need for downsizing the workforce, Georgia DOT has been downsizing the staffing levels since 1972. Still Georgia DOT is the 4th largest agency as far as personnel levels are concerned. Implementation of the Transportation program in Georgia requires a minimal staffing level. In 1972, there were 9110 people working for the Georgia Department of Transportation. The agency had a total budget of approximately $300 million dollars. Over the next 10 years the numbers were reduced to approximately 6200 and today the number hovers near 5500. Also during this timeframe, the cost of personal services at the Georgia DOT has increased far less than the Georgia Budget or the rate of inflation. In the years after reorganization and when Tom Moreland was Commissioner, through attrition, without laying off anyone, personnel levels at GDOT fell by more than 2000 in 1974. The savings from the reduction in personnel was used to fund actual construction projects. The period from 1973 to 1981 saw personnel levels decrease 28 percent, while at other state agencies, the number of positions increased by 32 percent. Personal Services Payrolls at these other agencies jumped 132% while GDOT jumped only 41% during this time of high inflation. Since 1972 Georgia DOT has seen a reduction in personnel/staff of 40%. I challenge you to find another state agency in Georgia that has decreased the number of employees, while continuing to take on additional mandated tasks and responsibilities, and done them with the success of the Georgia DOT. Also name an agency that has managed to keep personnel cost down from 1972 to today to a rate of growth of less than 2 percent per year! While the Georgia DOT workforce numbers fewer than the workforce of 1964, the transportation assets of Georgia have grown threefold. Today, GDOT produces three times the volume of transportation infrastructure compared to 1964. Simply put, Georgia DOT is doing nearly triple the production of that done in 1964 with fewer employees and the personnel costs have not exceeded the consumer price index for the 45 years!!! At the same time, Georgia’s state budget has grown tremendously. With the growth of the past, the state route system in Georgia has been improved, meaning additional lane miles have been added. DOT has seen a growth in the lane miles in the state route system of 270% from 1964 to date. These “assets” have to be maintained just as the original lanes were; however, the number of employees and resources doing that maintenance is less than it was 45 years ago. The legislature will ponder decisions about budgets and people, and they should consider these facts about transportation funding and Georgia's future transportation direction. In 1964, 22% of the State Budget was devoted to Transportation in Georgia; today it is 4%. Since 1964, the entire state budget has grown from about $ 522 Million to $20 billion. Since 1964, the Consumer Price Index has grown nearly 700%. The Georgia DOT Expenditures including construction projects was roughly 400 million dollars in 1964, and that included funds that were committed but not yet disbursed. Today, the Georgia DOT Expenditures amount to roughly 2 billion dollars, over twice the inflation-adjusted amount that was spent in 1964. The GDOT workforce in 1964 cost the taxpayers $36.305 million dollars. The GDOT workforce in 2009, which is made up of more college-educated professionals than that of 1964, will cost the taxpayers $302.5 million dollars. This is about the same as the Consumer Price Index for that time period. Georgia's population has grown threefold since 1964. Funding from motor fuel taxes has remained stagnant since the early 1970s. Although in 1979 the sales tax, 3 of 4 cents was dedicated to transportation spending. The lane miles that the Georgia DOT maintains has grown from 17826 miles in 1964 to 47648 miles today, an expansion of 2.7 times. If Personal Services were adjusted for inflation since 1972, they would be $490 million dollars instead of the $302.5 million dollars that they are today. Like other public agencies, Georgia DOT is looking at outsourcing additional sectors of the Department's functions in order to save taxpayer dollars. In fact, for most of the past 30 years, over 75% of expenditures were for capital projects, most of which were constructed by private contractors. During the past 30 plus years, Georgia has earned and been given several national awards for the excellent transportation system that has been developed and improved upon in our state. Finally, since reforms in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Georgia DOT has been operated with Board Members being selected by the respective congressional district legislative members and Commissioners selected by those Board Members. Under legislation being considered that would change. The Governor, Lt. Governor and Speaker of the House would make these selections and by doing so turn back the clock more than a half century. The citizens and taxpayers of Georgia would lose under this proposal. Local legislators would lose any control or voice regarding the make up of the Transportation Board or the Commissioner of Transportation. Part of the past success of the Georgia DOT in building first class transportation infrastructure has been the way that the Board is selected and Commissioner is appointed. Georgia DOT has seen growth in the transportation system that has made Georgia one of the finest State Transportation Agencies in the nation. All of this has been done on a gasoline tax and sales tax that has not been indexed for inflation, nor has it taken into account the increased costs of programs such as Fast Forward, the Governors Road Improvement Program, Paving the Way Home and other largely unfunded, but directed transportation initiatives. I urge you to consider these facts when making decisions this legislative season regarding transportation in Georgia.

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