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Follow TURFReview of TxDOT's bloated salaries finally coming
TxDOT's excessive salaries will be studied...and we've been advocating zero-based budgeting for the agency since its sunset review started in 2007-2008.
Lawmakers add a little stick to their TxDOT largesse
By Robert T. Garrett
Dallas Morning News
July 29, 2013
Lawmakers may be about to serve up a cool billion more in funding for roads, but they also could add a little stick: A study of whether “employee salaries and benefits” are bloated at the Texas Department of Transportation.
When Gov. Rick Perry named former Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson to run TxDOT nearly two years ago, Wilson’s salary struck some people as excessive — $292,500 a year, or $100,000 more than former executive director Amadeo Saenz, a former road engineer who retired. At the time, the Perry-appointed commission that oversees TxDOT wanted key legislators who oversee the state budget to approve additional salary of $88,500 for Wilson, once a salary study could be completed.
The 88 grand Wilson bump never happened. Last year, the Austin American-Statesman reported that top executive salaries at TxDOT were up more than 40 percent over 2011 and paychecks of other high-level managers also rose sharply, in spite of deep budget cuts elsewhere in state government. This year, according to a database compiled by the Texas Tribune, 30 TxDOT employees are making more than $150,000 apiece.
As revised over the weekend, the enabling bill for a proposed constitutional amendment to provide about $900 million more per year for non-toll roads would create nine-member panels in both the House and Senate to study future transportation funding. Among the panels’ charges would be to include recommendations in a report due Nov. 1, 2014, about “whether there are opportunities to reduce the use of money from the state highway fund” for TxDOT’s overhead. The agency has about 11,500 employees.
The select committees also would study whether the state could accrue benefit by making the agency justify every dime in its $20.9 billion, two year budget through “zero-based budgeting.”