Oregon House Republicans want accountability after ODOT's $1 billion budget forecast error
ODOT presented the error to the Oregon State Legislature's Joint Committee on Transportation earlier this week.
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Transportation officials are now assuring Oregonians and state leaders the error won't happen again.
ODOT said they did not spend the extra $1 billion they originally forecasted for the 2023-2025 budget.
However, Oregon House Republicans are hoping for accountability and transparency from ODOT, especially after this error.
'We are accountable — to address this, fix this and make sure it doesn't happen again,' said Travis Brouwer with ODOT.
Back in 2022, ODOT said when they were working out the budget for 2023-25, they accidentally forecasted about $6.9 billion. That's $1 billion more from the federal government than would eventually come in.
ODOT told the Joint Committee on Transportation Monday that they caught the error early — at the end of 2023.
'Does this look like a BMW neighborhood?'
'Without oversimplifying, I will say it is it is very complicated. And this is why it took us a little while to get this understood effectively and address it,' Brouwer said during the joint committee meeting.
He later told KOIN 6, 'We had simply planned for too many projects in the first two years, and really more projects than we had money to pay for.'
KOIN 6 News was told that so far this biennium, ODOT has only spent $5.6 billion of that forecast by moving around a few projects to be done later in the future.
'It means that projects will be delayed, but we are not going to be canceling projects,' Brouwer said.
Oregon Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis (R) said this is an example as to why she and others say ODOT should be held accountable and practice transparency.
'Accountability is just one of them. What are the priorities? Are we back? Do we need to go back to core mission of ODOT, of paving roads, plowing them, and making sure that our bridges and our roads are safe for Oregonians? So after Monday night, it's-it's a doubling down on those efforts, but those efforts are continuing,' Boshart Davis said.
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ODOT is assuring the committee and other Oregonians, they won't let this happen again.
'It really was a forecasting error, it's not a misexpenditure error, and we have taken the steps that we believe we need to take in order to make sure this doesn't happen again and so we don't overspend,' Brouwer said.
Since this error was made, Brouwer said for future budget forecasting, they will be double and triple checking that forecast to make sure they don't overspend or overcalculate again.
House Republicans said they'll keep pushing ODOT for more accountability and transparency.
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