DOT board seeks commissioner

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A committee of the state Transportation Board is interviewing candidates this week to lead the Georgia Department of Transportation as commissioner.

The agency, which runs a $2 billion budget, is one of the state's most important, building and repairing the state's roads and bridges and helping with smaller local transit and airports.

Keith Golden, a career DOT engineer, has served as acting commissioner since Vance Smith was ousted in September.

The handful to be interviewed includes Golden, who was plucked from the ranks to run the department during the search. Golden gets high marks from DOT board members for competence as a manager.  Marvin Woodward, deputy state property officer and a former official at the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, is also a candidate.

Since September, and even before, DOT board leaders considered a list of possibilities including State Property Officer Steve Stancil; state transportation officials; legislators; and even DOT board members. But it has been difficult to achieve consensus among the 13 board members and the governor, and to meet the demands of candidates who would like some guarantee of a contract. Smith's predecessor, Gena Evans, was also ousted, fired by the board in 2009.

The 13 board members make the hire by majority vote, and the governor technically has no say. But board members are trying to avoid the wrenching conflicts over the appointment that have arisen in previous years.

The position of commissioner, the DOT's top staff official, has become less important than it used to be as its power to pick projects and choose major spending programs has waned.

The department now spends half its construction budget on repairs and has much less money to spend on new projects than it did even five years ago. The DOT has more than 4,000 employees, down from about 6,000 just five years ago before budget cuts. In addition, a new law in 2009 reorganized the DOT, shifting some power over project selection to an appointee of the governor.