Auditors: DOT’s deficit grows to $456 million

Over the summer, state auditors looked at the Department of Transportation’s budget and breathed a sigh of relief. The deficit appeared to be headed in the right direction.

Then, just three weeks ago, as the audit was winding down, DOT staff found a stack of contracts and change orders in a file cabinet. Turns out the pledged dollars in that paperwork had never been entered into the state’s accounting system.

And it represented a lot of money — $360 million.

On Wednesday, auditors officially reported the bad news to the DOT board: The department now has a $456 million deficit and must find that money to close the gap.

Auditors piled on more bad news: The right-of-way office, which acquires land for road development, has forced people to sell their land and then let it languish.

That office doesn’t even know how much land it owns.

In one case, for a project on Ga. 316 and Ga. 81 in 1999, DOT told a man it needed land that he had bought less than six months before, intending to build a gas station.

It usually takes years for a project to arrive at the construction stage, and the man asked DOT if it would let him build his station and make what profit he could until the agency was ready to build its ramps.

DOT refused, saying the project was “imminent,” and condemned his land.

“Eight years later, GDOT continues to have no formal construction plans for the project and the project is not on GDOT’s Long Range Program,” according to the audit.

The audit, requested by DOT Commissioner Gena Evans, also raised questions about the qualifications of DOT’s appraisers and found that 52 percent of people who fought the DOT appraisal received more in a settlement.

DOT has more than 5,000 employees, and is the state’s chief transportation agency, doling out hundreds of millions of gas tax dollars every year for road construction statewide.

DOT’s deficit means the state agency now must find the money in its budget because the department constitutionally cannot run a deficit, said John Thornton, who audits state government.

Where the money will come from isn’t clear yet. DOT board members said they would meet next week to discuss solutions, but some possibilities were traded privately: layoffs — or cutting back even more transportation projects. DOT’s annual budget is about $2.3 billion a year.

Board member David Doss argued with Thornton over the validity of the deficit. Other board members seemed to accept it.

One board member, Sam Wellborn, said “now we know” DOT’s financial situation.

The department would fix the problems, Evans said. But some of them, such as computerizing DOT’s land inventory, would take time.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Evans said, “and this is a long-term fix.”