Latest news with #InterstateBusinessSolutions
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Oregon lawmakers weigh increased oversight of state's embattled transportation department
A group of workers with Interstate Business Solutions — which contracts with the Oregon's Department of Transportation — clean up trash on a highway. Lawmakers are currently weighing a new transportation package that would enhance oversight for the department. (Courtesy of Interstate Business Solutions) A powerful committee tasked with creating the Legislature's newest attempt at a transportation investment package faced growing calls Tuesday to hold Oregon's imperiled Department of Transportation accountable for funding future projects and regulations aimed at restoring the state's infrastructure. Testimony from Oregonians on House Bill 2025, a 102-page piece of legislation that would institute dozens of taxes including a 15-cent raise to the gas tax and higher fees for electric vehicle drivers, lasted for about an hour and a half. It's the latest in a series of proposals Oregon lawmakers have put forth this session to address longstanding concerns over issues like crumbling roads and weakened bridges throughout the state. Many speakers pressed lawmakers to ensure that they consider vulnerable communities throughout the state and the growing effects of climate change while deciding funding for roads and bridges. Representatives for unions, construction workers, environmental advocacy groups and other transportation industry insiders all came out to push lawmakers to fund key projects involving highway expansions, corridors and equitable development. But perhaps one of the most significant changes the legislation makes is further oversight over Oregon's heavily scrutinized Department of Transportation. In recent years, the department has been the subject of independent reviews, internal audits and public scrutiny over stretched out project timelines and increasing budget estimates. This year, the department is facing a budget deficit, and its workers are pushing for further funding. The bill calls for further audits into the Department of Transportation and establishes quarterly reporting requirements regarding the agency's progress on reforms and projects. It also would set up a new committee to check in on the status of infrastructure projects. 'Our priority throughout this conversation has not changed. We want to respect valuable frontline jobs in communities throughout the state,' Courtney Graham, political director for the Service Employees International Union Local 503, which represents more than 70,000 public employees and caregivers, told lawmakers Tuesday. 'Absent a solution this session, more than 1,000 positions at [the department] will be eliminated, including hundreds of our members.' Graham said delays in project delivery 'have harmed public trust.' She said House Bill 2025 could help alleviate those concerns, but warned that 'past legislatures have made choices like prioritizing major capital projects over core maintenance.' Other speakers on Tuesday said they would like to see further accountability from the department beyond what lawmakers have proposed so far. The department's challenges merit 'bold changes,' said Kirsten Adams, director and counsel for policy and public affairs for the Wilsonville-based Associated General Contractors. The joint committee in May reviewed findings from an independent investigative firm that attributed the agency's plight to dated financial software, surging costs, turnover, and 'workflow bottlenecks.' 'We also appreciate the efforts to bring more accountability to ODOT,' Adams said during her testimony. 'However, we think these provisions could have gone farther, particularly in light of the work done this session by the committee on accountability issues and significant feedback received there.' Lawmakers on the committee did not engage with speakers or ask questions, but they will likely do so in a work session that has not been scheduled yet. There are two more public hearings on the legislation: one on Wednesday regarding transit, rail and bike safety alongside public transit, and another on Thursday involving operations, maintenance and preservation. The bill would also give Gov. Tina Kotek the authority to choose the director of the department in consultation with the Oregon Transportation Commission, a move Kotek supports. The governor currently appoints five commissioners from different areas of the state who must be confirmed by the Senate. The bill would extend the Senate's mandate to also include a vote on the governor's choice for director. 'At this point I'm not looking at any changes in the agency,' Kotek told reporters Monday. 'But everything that I can have for stronger tools to hold that agency accountable will help me do my job and serve Oregonians better.' The bill's cost has been a point of contention and uncertainty among lawmakers, raising questions for several in attendance Tuesday who said they were unable to comment in further detail without more official analysis about the bill's fiscal impact. At a Monday informational hearing, two lawmakers on the joint committee – Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, and Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale – agreed the cost to taxpayers would likely generate at least $1 billion in revenue. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meet the men who cleaned 240,000 pounds of trash off Oregon's highways
Interstate Business Solutions is an Indiana-based company that contracts with transportation departments across the U.S., including Oregon's, to provide highway cleanup services. About 50% of its staff consists of formerly incarcerated individuals, alongside others with resume gaps. (Courtesy of Interstate Business Solutions) May 31 marks one year since Fernando Rodriguez was released from prison. Now 25, he spent seven years in an Idaho prison for a drug possession conviction from when he was a teenager. After his release, he moved to Oregon and secured a full-time job cleaning litter from Oregon's highways — a job that gives him financial stability and helps provide for his family. However, it's unclear whether he'll still have this job after June 2025. With no long-term funding plan yet approved by the Oregon Legislature, the Oregon Department of Transportation is facing significant budget shortfalls driven by declining tax revenue, inflation and spending restrictions. The department estimates it needs $1.8 billion more each year to pay for road maintenance and repairs. Without new ways of adding revenue, the department could scale back essential services like road maintenance, snow removal, customer support and highway and graffiti cleanup. Rodriguez works at Interstate Business Solutions, an Indiana-based company that primarily hires formerly incarcerated individuals, veterans and people facing homelessness for jobs cleaning highway litter. The company has contracts with state departments in several states — including Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Kansas — and began contracting with the Oregon Department of Transportation in April 2024. Since then, workers like Rodriguez have cleaned nearly 240,000 pounds of litter off sections of Interstates 5, 84 and 205 and U.S Highway 26. Most of the litter comes from homeless encampments on the highway, Rodriguez said. 'For years, those encampments have been neglected and trash has developed from people living on the side of the highway. The daily garbage you'd find in the garbage can in your house is all over the highways in piles,' Rodriguez told the Capital Chronicle, adding that his supervisor has to pick up used needles they regularly find. Interstate Business Solutions has received $4 million from the Oregon Department of Transportation to clean state highways. Using a contractor to clean litter off the highways allows the Oregon Department of Transportation to increase litter service removal without adding more tasks for maintenance employees, department spokesperson Katherine Benenati told the Capital Chronicle. The Oregon Department of Transportation spends about $250,000 each month in all of Clackamas, Multnomah and Hood River Counties and eastern Washington County, Benenati said. Highway litter causes environmental degradation and motor vehicle accidents and negatively impacts tourism and a business' decision to move to a city, Interstate Business Solutions spokesperson Morgan Johnston told the Capital Chronicle. However, the company sees its work as more than just cleaning up highways. 'Our mission is to not only keep Oregon clean and beautiful but to change the lives of our employees for the better,' Johnston said. Formerly incarcerated individuals make up 50% of the company's workforce. Without the company's services, the Portland metro area would see a significant increase in litter on the more than 500 miles its staff regularly cleans, Johnston said. The job helps employee Eric Gamble provide for his daughter and granddaughter. Gamble was released from an Oregon prison in 2020 for a gun offense, and he worked at gas stations before joining the cleanup crew. Dante Patton, another crew member, has achieved sobriety, steady income and job security since joining the highway cleanup crew. 'People used to love to come to Oregon, and they would say how beautiful it was,' Interstate Business Solutions Field Supervisor Dale Schultz told the Capital Chronicle. 'You don't get that much anymore because of the way the highway was looking, but now people are starting to look again and say 'Wow, they're cleaning it up.'' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Program gives Ohioans a second chance and keeps roads clean
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — When driving on the highway, you may see a few pieces of trash. You also might see groups of people outside collecting it, keeping the roads safe and clean. 'It gives me responsibility,' team lead driver for Interstate Business Solutions Michael Dunn said. 'Now I'm a responsible man.' Interstate Business Solutions (IBS) contracts with the Ohio Department of Transportation to collect litter from highways. While cleaning the roadways, IBS also gives Ohioans who need one a second chance. Dunn, who said he has been in trouble previously, said working at IBS has put him on a good path. 'They helped me in life, I'm trouble-free. I work every day,' he said. 'It keeps me out of trouble. And once I'm done, I'm home, I'm in the bed at a certain time.' Data Desk: Ohio has one of the lowest average urban driving speeds in country IBS alone collected 122,290 bags of trash from January 2024 to mid-March 2025. That equates to nearly 2 million pounds, IBS supervisor Garey McCartney said. 'We take pride in being able to clean it up, make it safer, make it look nicer,' McCartney said. McCartney has been a supervisor with IBS for nearly two years. He said the job means a lot to some of the team members. 'It gives them an opportunity to invest back in the community because most guys work in the market where they're from,' he said. IBS has seven markets across Ohio where they work to keep certain stretches of the roads clean. 'That is tires, bottles, anything that's trash related, we take care of it,' Dunn said. Tires and bottles only scratch the surface; Dunn said they find IDs, credit cards, pairs of skis, gardening tools and so much more. McCartney said one story sticks out to him, when the team thought they saw one or two tires. Discover Ohio's three best staycation spots for summer trips 'And low and behold there were 31 tires in that one spot,' he said. 'So, that's a lot. And that's just one little activity in the day. So, we don't understand a lot of the times how much is really out there.' Dunn said he hopes to see the program keep growing. 'My advice to anyone that's been in trouble, they ought to try it out. I mean its just trash, we just pick up trash,' Dunn said. 'If you keep that pace, and keep moving, you'll be alright.' McCartney said he likes to tell people to imagine if no one was out there cleaning things up, just how much garbage there would be on the side of the road. What IBS does is only the beginning. ODOT has several other contractors who, according to a spokesperson, collected 644,139 bags in 2024, including IBS' efforts. ODOT said they spent about $10 million every year to keep roads clean. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
