WASTE ALLEGED …
The S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) is spending millions of dollars each year on outside contracts for tasks it should be handling internally, multiple sources familiar with this wasteful, corrupt, woefully mismanaged (and whiny) agency tell us.
Among the contracts? A $500,000 annual expense for cleaning ponds and water quality structures.
“SCDOT has the equipment and staff to complete this work at a fraction of that cost,” one agency insider told us.
SCDOT is also spending $1 million a year on a firm that assists with compliance for the federal government’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) – a mandate of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
This work should also be handled in-house, we’re told.
“If properly managed, all the work could be completed (in-house),” the insider told us. “Instead, they use a consultant and go way above permit requirements that are a waste of taxpayers dollars.”
In fact we’re told the contractor performing this particular task has billed some highly-questionable expenses to taxpayers.
Asked about these contracts (and expenses), another SCDOT source told us similarly wasteful contracts were “rampant” at the agency.
“It isn’t just unnecessary roads,” the source said. “Waste is everywhere here.”
As this website has repeatedly noted, SCDOT has seen its base budget more than double over the last six years. This year, lawmakers threw hundreds of millions in new money on top of that (some of it via a constitutionally dubious borrowing scheme).
That’s more than enough money for SCDOT to fix its crumbling network of roads and bridges – and to properly maintain/ responsibly expand this network moving forward.
Unfortunately, lawmakers refuse to prioritize projects or enact long-overdue administrative reform at the agency. In fact SCDOT leaders continue to promote multi-billion dollar boondoggles even as their embarrassing inability to do basic maintenance continues to cause problems all over the state.
Anyway, we’ve been promised additional details about these (and other) wasteful contracts/ expenses at SCDOT. Stay tuned for more details in future reports.