Jim Rowen has the scoop on the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s self-indulgent, taxpayer-funded thousand-dollar dinner at the University Club.
Sounds likely that there was a quorum of some SEWRPC committee or task force or perhaps the commission itself at that dinner. Seems to me that it probably should have been noticed as a public meeting under the Open Meetings Law, but I don’t see any notice of a University Club dinner on the SEWRPC web site.
Whoops!
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission got slapped around some for its amazingly bad web site and other continued weaknesses in outreach and congestion mitigation, but in the end the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration gave SEWRPC another four years to wreak havoc and destruction on the Milwaukee community.
The certification process, though, does not mean that SEWRPC is doing a good job. Far from it. The whole review process, in fact, generally is considered fairly meaningless by metropolitan planning organizations like SEWRPC, according to the Government Accountability Office. Here it is, in gray and white, from the GAO’s September report, “Metroplitan Planning Organizations: Options Exist to Enhance Transportation Planning Capacity and Federal Oversight“:
Most MPOs we interviewed generally view the federal certification reviewsas pro forma in nature and place a greater value on informal assistance from the federal government. Officials in one state said that the most important oversight is the “give and take” between agencies on the various transportation plans they create. This informal interaction allows the oversight agencies to identify issues prior to the formal reviews. Likewise, many federal officials with whom we spoke view informal interactions— such as regular meetings, technical assistance, and review of air quality conformity analyses—as an important aspect of oversight. One FHWA division official we interviewed stated that the benefit of ongoing communication is that problems are identified as they arise and can be addressed well before the certification review or self certification is conducted.
Yup, the very people who are supposed to judge whether SEWRPC (and other MPOs) are doing a good job are the very people working closely with those same MPOs on a day-to-day basis and trying to ensure that problems within the MPOs do not become big enough to earn a mention in recertification reports. Some might call that type of cross-purpose relationship a conflict of interest, but FHWA and FTA do not. In SEWRPC’s case, FHWA official Dwight McComb participated on the federal review team even though he serves on many SEWRPC committees and so was basically reviewing his own work. Citizens Allied for Sane Highways (of which I am co-chair) asked FHWA early in the recertification process to remove McComb from the review team — the agency refused.
The certification process is designed to avoid conflict, GAO said:
“FTA and FHWA officials noted that the process is meant to be collaborative in nature. Therefore, a finding of noncompliance is as much of a failure on the part of (US) DOT as the MPO, according to a DOT official.”
Fortunately for SEWRPC, according to the GAO, “The current process-oriented approach toward
certification generally focuses on procedural requirements as opposed to performance.” (Emphasis added)
And tough sanctions for doing a lousy job just haven’t happened. The GAO:
FTA and FHWA can withhold apportioned federal highway and transit funds if they determine an MPO is in noncompliance with federal requirements. However, FTA and FHWA officials were unaware of any instance in which an MPO was not certified due to noncompliance during the last 10 years….Because the federal certification is focused on compliance, not outcomes,it is difficult to determine whether federal oversight is improving transportation planning. GAO has previously recommended to DOT, as well as to Congress, that adopting performance measures and goals for
programs can aid in evaluating and measuring the success of the programs, which can lead to better decisions about transportation investments. The procedural focus of the federal certification, and the fact that, according to DOT officials’ knowledge, no MPO has failed to be certified as a result of a certification review also makes it difficult to use the certification results as a performance indicator for MPOs.
It seems almost miraculous, given the extraordinarily low standards set by the federal government in its MPO recertification review process, that SEWRPC got called to task on any issues at all. Heaven knows what a real review by an independent outside agency would reveal.
WisDOT stiffs Milwaukee on stimulus road projects. A SEWRPC committee is set to consider the list.
More here.
SEWRPC says it will give special attention to proposals for stimulus-funded transportaiton projects in economically distressed areas and Ken Yunker said his public-outreach blowoff was an incomplete email. More on that here.
The bad news, as blogger Jim Rowen points out, is that the Federal Highway Administration says there are no economically distressed areas in southeastern Wisconsin.
Obama’s $50 billion
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010President Obama used a Labor Day appearance here to announce that he wants to spend $50 billion on infrastructure over six years.
Hold the applause, please, at least until we get the details.
First, Republicans don’t like the plan, announcing that it is dead on arrival. Republicans don’t like anything Obama does, so the opposition isn’t new. It still could be significant, though.
Second, it’s not really very much money. $50 billion nationwide over six years. The fine folks at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission told us seven years ago that spending $6 billion in a small area of a smallish state to rebuild and unnecessarily expand freeways is such a minor consideration that it need not be mentioned in surveys measuring support for the $6 billion effort.
Just kidding. The SEWRPC freeway study planning process, as we all know, was a joke driven by road builders and HNTB (sponsors of the broken Marquette Interchange ramp) to justify a conclusion already reached by road builders and HNTB. (See how it works? HNTB helps SEWRPC conclude that freeway expansion is needed and then grabs the design contracts for the resulting projects. Sweeeeet.)
What is serious is that $50 billion over six years over 50 states is less than it might first appear. Economist Dean Baker says it is 1.4% of the federal budget and adds:
It is also equal to about 4 percent of the $1.2 drop in annual demand (@ $600 billion in lost consumption and $600 billion in reduced construction) due to the collapse of the housing bubble.
Obama says the $50 billion, targeted at transportation, would be the first phase of an infrastructure bank. But adding $50 billion in spending is just wasting a lot of it if it isn’t spent well. And highway spending, in this country, isn’t done well.
According to the Government Accountability Office report, Highway Trust Fund: Nearly All States Received More Funding Than They Contributed in Highway Taxes Since 2005:
As we have reported, for many surface transportation programs, goals are numerous and conflicting, and the federal role in achieving the goals is not clear. Many of these programs have no relationship to the performance of either the transportation system or of the grantees receiving federal funds and do not use the best tools and approaches to ensure effective investment decisions.15 Our previous work has outlined the need to create well defined goals based on identified areas of federal interest and a clearly defined federal role in relation to other levels of government.16 We have suggested that where the federal interest is less evident, state and local governments could assume more responsibility, and some functions could potentially be assumed by the states or other levels of government.17 Furthermore, incorporating performance and accountability for results into transportation funding decisions is critical to improving results.
So major jobs program? Absolutely, yes. But spending large, but insufficient sums in the usual ways that don’t produce the desired results? Absolutely, no. Please. Let’s get it right.
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