ALC-Highway Commission Review and Advisory Subcommittee

Like all the Highway commission review and advisory subcommittee to order. Mr. Co-chair, would you have anything you'd like to say? Alrighty then. OK, our first order and as you can see by our, uh, information that we have, we hadn't met for a while, so our first order is a report of the 2023 4th quarter 2024 1st and second quarter land conveyances by Director Tudor if Just introduce yourself if you get one of the mics on. Good morning. I'm Laurie Tudor, the director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation. It's been a while. It's good to see everyone. So, um. Let me get this skull in here. OK, I'm not sure exactly what you've got in front of you. I have this very neatly put together notebook that the staff does for me, but In there you should see um. The land conveyances, uh, We're required to report quarterly on land conveyances to the legislative council, so this is either the Bureau of Legislative Research. So these are what you're seeing there in your packet and, um, I've got, if you have any detailed questions, I have Kevin White, our division head of Right Away here today, and he has information sheets on each one of these sales, so I'll just give you a moment to look through that and decide if there's any questions that we could. Hopefully answer your questions. Thank you. Because we do have a lot of information today, like I said, most of it is reporting, but if you've had time to look at it before the meeting, if not, And any of the members let me know if you have a question for director. I don't see any questions if you'd just like to proceed. OK, we'll move on to the report of 2024. You've got the 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, and 4th quarter reports on the, on the progress of each highway construction project of 10 million or more, and those are exhibits C1 and C3. If you'll remember this report is required. projects are underway, 10,000 or more are, uh. are submitted to you all for your review and it gives an idea of where we're at as far as project completion. I would like to point you to the quarter 4, um, 4th quarter report since, and that's the most recent one you'll have there in front of you. And this report uh for the 4th quarter. Can y'all hear me OK? I feel like I'm. That'll be C3 in our packet. OK, um, if you just kind of look through that report, it's got a lot of great information in it. And the table of contents, a glossary, and then you have on page 5, there's just a list, just a, a, a consolidated list of all the projects that are under construction, 10,000 or more, and it's sorted by route and then if you move forward on, you know, move to page 11, you'll see the same list except this list is sorted by county. So it kind of helps you see everything all together in one list, and then moving On you'll see on page 15, beginning on page 17, there is a there is a, uh, information sheet for each one of these projects so you can see where we're at as far as if they're behind, if they're ahead, uh, the amount of money that, that was awarded the amount of money with change orders that is now part of the contract. A lot of great information there. So I'm gonna stop and let y'all flip through there if you have any questions. Again, I have folks here that can hopefully answer those questions if they, if I cannot. Generally, there's always a question to ask on over here at Benton. that's been over here, but is it almost done? Would you like to tell about how good it's going to be my actual talk to about was, um, how much I appreciate how quick, how things are actually moving along now at a much faster rate than what they were moving along, and I know that's not due to y'all, that was due to the contractor, but it is, uh, to me it's a lot more safe than what it was. I was gonna ask how many wrecks have you been having? Have the wrecks decreased in that area to what they, what they were. Previously, um, because it was a very Bad place to be because of Rex, but I, I myself have not experienced any slowing down or stoppage due to wrecks and I just want you to talk to that please there has been a reduction in the amount of crashes in that work zone. That couple, you know, the, the fact that construction is moving along so well and they've been able to open it up and make it a more comfortable drive while they're still doing construction along with those speed enforcement cameras, which has really helped to Slow people down through there. So overall, we're seeing a reduction of crashes in that in that work zone. It, it, it's probably a combination of those two. The contractor is really um they put together a plan of how they were going to finish this project. Um, when we, we were, you know, it just became, they just were not making the progress that we thought they should be making, but they came up with a plan and they presented it to us in the commission and they have absolutely executed it and they've done a great job and we're hopeful if everything goes weather, all the things, knock on wood, um, it should be done by the end of the year. Oh, good, good. And is that, is that the, um. Side roads also are just I 30 that'll be finished by 2025. We're hopeful it'll be the whole thing, but we know for sure that I-30 will be open, fully open to traffic sometime this fall. There is still some work on the Highway 70 interchange, but we're trying to work through that to get that done as well. I know any of you that drive through that, you can, you can really feel the difference, completely different. I appreciate it. Thank you. So hopefully I have one more, and that's what I go through, uh, 67 Jacksonville and Sherwood. Uh, what's the completion dates let's see. What, what page is that I don't know what it is, so I can't point you to it. Yeah. Oh, thank you. It goes all the way out to You're your area, cabin area. Sorry. I was just curious. OK, uh, I've, I've got it here now. That's the Highway 5 to Highway 89 widening. Is that right? No. Oh, OK. Uh, yeah, late 2027. I got it in front of me now. He, you, he answered it correctly. Thank you. You got one more question? This Uh, the representative Cozart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I do appreciate also the job they're doing and how much better it is. I travel that quite often. I just want to know how many times you've caught me and these other legislators speeding and what are you gonna do about it. Can I, can I plead the 5th? Well, thank you. I, I do try to hold my speed down and I hope everyone else does because it is, it is really a whole lot safer in there and we thank you all for what you've done on that. Thank you, thank you. Representative Watson. Thank you not to beat the dog to the dog to death, but in that Saline County area that, uh, the one that, uh, Representative Vault brought up a while ago, one of the biggest reliefs were when the uh when it started being widened with the, uh, concrete barriers on each side that took a lot of stress off of drivers. I mean, as much as I travel it and everybody else too. I mean, I could see them, they kind of ease up on the steering wheel a little bit instead of just white knuckling it, but that's, that's been a tremendous, uh, and I don't anticipate. I hope things just keep going on smooth and get this thing done and, and get back on to the next project, and we thank everybody for that. Absolutely. And then you can just worry about Bucky's traffic. That's what, that's what's next thing is coming in that um 114, so I know y'all are excited about that. Representative Carr, do you have a question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hey, I've, I've looked here on the listing of the sorted by county, the project scheduled and I see that several of them are starting at 25, starting in 26, and starting in 27 and, uh, I didn't see anything on there Mississippi County I 55 to 61 connector and I was just going to kind of see where we were kind of on that. Uh, I've, I've, uh, reached out to Senator Boseman, Congressman Crawford. So they're willing to help us federally. Uh, financially on that, uh, I've written a Support letter to. It's for the, uh, The, uh, Federal Railroad Administration, railroad crossing limination grant application. So we're getting all that stuff and trying to get the financial help on the federal side, but I was just kind of wondering, when do you expect that that might get started as a scheduled project. still working through, um, with the, with the. Stakeholders in the area, some of them want the projects. Some of them are asking, they're wanting to do something different. So we're doing a study and we're working on to figure out what's the best solution to the problem there. And once we get that underway and figure out what the funding's gonna be, uh, then we can go ahead and schedule a project going right now? I'm sorry, the study, the study's ongoing and we are right now kind of in a waiting. Uh situation that right Jerry? So It was just OK, we have, OK, what you're not seeing in that list is our future step, which is fixing to go out and we're working on getting that in and that's for through 2028. So from what, so there is going to be funding for that project in our next statewide transportation improvement program. Sorry to use those, those acronyms so freely, but anyway, yes, it's in the future, then it's coming in the future, so that's where we're at today. When do you think you'll conclude the study? Well, with Big River approving it, I guess we'll be putting that in front of you like to come to the table that's, that's OK. OK, we're, what we'll have to do is get this, uh, commission to approve the study and then it'll be official and then we can move forward with programming a project. So that's where we're at if we've gotten all the moving parts done. OK. All right. Thank, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Representative Bult, do you have another question? Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I want to thank you for the work that you've been doing on rural roads in Arkansas. It's been very helpful in my area, especially, uh, I've got a question about, I know I have 3 bridges that have been condemned, and I don't see them in this report. Do you know when those bridges might be? Looked at to being, um, Replaced because buses go over those bridges and I get calls all the time about this bus isn't supposed to go over this bridge because it's been condemned, but it's the only way to get a child home. OK. Will you send me those, those locations and I'll, I'll get that to you. I don't know it. Right off the top of your head, that's fine. Thank you. Senator Hill I want to go back to what Senator Johnson mentioned a while ago you go back to that highway 5 and 89 project. When's it gonna end? OK, that, OK, Highway 589, we've got mid 2027. OK, so that, so Senator Johnson will be able to drive straight through in 27 and he's coming a little rough that the issues, correct? Yeah, that's right. just for him. I was hoping it wouldn't be stair step where as soon as one ended, the other one would start. No, they're both underway. Thank you. Have any other questions on the C3, if not, we'll look at D4. I'd like to do that. D1, I'm sorry. OK, so like you said when you haven't met in a while, you got lots of reports. But if I can get you to go all the way to the monthly report for August. This is for our efficiency study recommendations, the rules for implementation. I'll give you a, uh, high-level overview of, of what we've accomplished. So if you'll remember, uh. That before issue one was voted on, uh, the legislature asked that or wanted us to go through an efficiency review and a consultant was hired, came to the apartment, and reviewed all our processes and everything and came up with a list of 13 recommendations along with that, the the, uh, the department responded to those recommendations with a set of rules of how we were going to implement those recommendations and that that's D7. Right. August Yes, yes. That's 7 in our package. That's correct. OK, continue. I'm sorry. And, uh, so that was an extremely beneficial study. It required us to look into everything that we're doing to see if there was any way that we could do better and it actually became more, more than anything, justification for some things we always wanted to do, but we were, we felt like we shouldn't spend the money on. So it's sort of different kinds of systems, uh, computer, uh, software, some things like that. And so it was really beneficial for the department to go through that exercise. One of the recommendations was to finalize KPIs and implement performance management. Um, and we have done that. We have, we have created a dashboard which is posted on the our website, and there's an instructional video that explains how to navigate through the, the dashboard. And KPIs are key performance indicators and what it does is it allows you at just one easy way of looking at how well is R dot doing with its roads, it's bridges, it's interstates, those kind of things. And we set targets and We try to meet those targets and when then we grade ourselves on So it's a work in progress, but we've made huge progress. It's out on our website now and we'll be adding to that and making it very user friendly. You can, you know, you've got this list in your book of all the 10 million or more, but eventually you'll be able to look at any project in your area and uh get the information on it. So we're really excited about that. We think it's a great tool and a great result. I believe that'd be very helpful. Uh, do you have a way of tracking how many people actually Log on to to look at it, you can tell what I believe we do, we do have that ability, but I don't know the numbers yeah, that'd be interesting too if you, if you have that to to see how many people are actually. If they know about it, for one thing, you know, and then use it, but it looked like it would be very helpful. Do you have any questions? On any time so far. Right All right, all right. The next one is, um, recommendation number 4, implement platform that tracks all stakeholder inquiries to resolution. And I think I've already presented a little bit about this. This is our askcar dot. And we have really, uh, uh, this is really a huge tool that we have taken. It's just seems to get getting better and better. The last numbers I got that our response time to like 14,000 requests at the beginning until now we've had we've, we've accumulated about 14,000 inquiries, inquiries. In our, uh, response time is down to 3 days average. So, you know, we get there, we get their question, we find the answer and we try to, you know, just our response time be as quick as possible so we continue to try to make that better and better. But the whole idea is that we can also have a way of, of tracking, um, what, you know, what people are asking, where issues might be. There's just a lot that we'll be able to have, you know, data is power. And having all this entered into a system that we can then manipulate is gonna be huge for us. So exciting. I have another small video. I hope I don't video you out, but this just reminds you of how to use it. So you, you do have to create a login before you can get any information from there so we can know how to respond and and take yes represent car. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know if anyone has used that. I have. It's effective. It's efficient. It's a useful tool. I have probably submitted probably at least a dozen. Uh. What it is is people call me and say, ah, pothole here, this needs to be fixed there. And I really want to give them the link. I, I have shared the link with some, but I thought, uh, it's just easier if I just, if I do it myself, it takes about 40 seconds to set up your account. It's easy. It's user-friendly. And I have received a reply email that what I have submitted has been put into a work order. If not that afternoon, typically within 24 hours. So, good job on this. Uh, I think it's a great tool. It's, it's, I'm telling you right now, if you guys haven't done it yet, you need to get on there and experiment with it. It's a, it's a, it's a great tool. Thank you, Representative. That, that's really encouraging. I'm glad to hear a true testimony of how well it's working. But let me just say, y'all legislature, legislators need to call me or your DE or whatever. We're not pushing you to use the, we want y'all to, we want to have that personal relationship with you. But if you want to use, if you wanna send your constituents to this, we're good with that. I understand that, but I No, you, you guys are working and because it's so convenient. it's, uh, I mean, if, if you guys hadn't set up an account, you need to. OK. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Another, another question then is how, how is the best way for us to get this out to the public. Well, it's, it's increasing usership every day. We've done a lot when we go out, we, we have what we call the R dot roadshow. I don't know if we've done it lately, we go to these different Rotary clubs, Qantas clubs. We're just trying to get the word out. We have a presentation talking about the tools available to the citizens. And uh you, you all are gonna, gonna be a good resource as well. You get calls every day, you know, if you wanna say try it out, see if you like it, um, you know, we're just trying to get the word out. I think we're that's what I was wondering if it. I don't know about the legislators, but if you we you know we just had the part to to share on social media so everybody gets their information anyway. But you know, I'm sure there's not a lot of folks that know you do that can continue to try to get the word out if there's something that would be Yeah, we did. I think when I first uh presented this, there was an email that went out to the legislators, so we, I can resend it though. I know y'all get a ton of emails could have been one of the 3000 or 400 a day that I got, but I, I don't remember getting it, but that doesn't mean anything. That would be good if you would refresh our memories so we can share it also. OK, we'll do that, um. We'll do that today. We'll get it sent out OK, proceed the next is recommendation number 6, which is to implement construction contractor performance measurements. And we've been working closely with the contracting industry to make this something that's valuable and and usable. Uh, we actually had a meeting today with Arkansas asphalt Payment Association talking about this. And uh we have representation from them and also from the Arkansas General Contractors Association. But we want it to be, uh, not just writing the contractors, but more or less starting the conversation of how could we have, on both sides done better on this project. What worked, what didn't. This is just gonna be, uh, you know, this was a requirement and we'll do that, but that's how we're going to use it is to open up the conversation and do a post-construction meeting and after action meeting, if you will, to take lessons learned and take them. In the future, both for the contractors and for ourdot. We just want to continue to get better and better in delivering these projects. We have, uh, I will say that we've done a pilot application of 7 projects. We're working through that to come up with what will the form look like? How will we, what will the questions be? Um, so we're, we're, we're moving forward, we're making progress, but a lot of progress has been made. We're not there yet. Any questions or comments? Representative Carr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And one more while I'm plugging that, you can even upload pictures. I forgot to add that earlier, so anyway, it's like I'm on a commission, uh, working for a commission on that, but that, that's how good and effective it is. And so anyway, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very, you know, the, the efficiency review brought a lot of positive things to the department and we appreciate, we appreciate that, you know. Senator Hill. You have someone on your staff that, that can show Senator Johnson how to do that, how do they download pictures and do all that. Yes, we do. He, he needs to meet with them after this meeting we'll get him hooked up. Deal You said tell Senator Hill how I send you pictures or any of the rest of you, Laurie, I've seen two pictures. I don't need to send a website picture. Yeah Recommendation 12 and 13 is to ensure staff can develop in their careers and improve staff capabilities, uh, to align with current and future organizational needs, extremely important. Everyone is in every part of the industry is struggling with workforce, and there's not enough workers to go around. And uh we're doing all we can to encourage our workers to stay with our diet to provide those career ladders every time we just went through the biennial process, you know, we, we, we keep creating career ladders without adding positions. I, I would like to say. Um, and we have a meeting tomorrow with our commissioners to get that approved to send over to the legislature, but every time we go through that process, we look at to see how can we increase these career la to encourage our employees to feel like they have a career with Ardot. They have an upward path mobility and we've made great progress with that. The other thing that I recently approved and, uh, there was celebration all around in the human resources division was a, a leadership development program, which is gonna be phenomenal if you as an RO employee feel like you wanna be uh considered for future leadership. A lot of people. They, they want to work and just do their jobs, and we need a path for them, but then we need a path for those that want to be future leaders. And we're put together this program to teach them and to mentor them to become the future leaders of our diet that we need. And I think it's going to be very well received. It was just, uh, it was just rolled out a few, few weeks ago, I believe, um, and everyone that wants to is going to apply for that. I think they have to be recommended. by their supervisor as well to make sure, um, that, you know, we, we keep it what it what it needs to be, but. Um, really excited about that. So with that, we feel like this particular recommendation has been completed, so we're, we're, we're thrilled about this one or your retention, uh, do you feel, I mean, you get destruction level up to professional level or I'm not gonna, I'm gonna say it's not as bad as it got right after COVID and we were just Being Employees, um, it was bad. We were all very concerned. It's kind of gotten better, but we still have a huge turnover, especially in our technical, you know, mechanics, our inspector, there's, it's like I go back to say our engineers. There's not enough employees for the demand that's out there. So we're competing with the private sector. We can't pay like the private sector. We've got to find more creative ways to retain our workforce. And, uh, so we're working on that, uh, you know, but I won't say we're out of the woods yet. We're still very, very lean is the word I heard this morning. We're really lean, especially out in our, in our. Uh, resident engineer offices or maintenance offices out in the field. So There's been just a little bit of. Hard to hear and So if you could pull the mic cup of tea a little bit. You're, you're, you're awful soft. I'm sorry. That's the way the Lord made me. I don't know what to do about it. I just need to be right in the microphone. I can hear myself, so I'm pretty I apologize. OK, any, any other comments. Just a second. I'm sorry. Representative Ryan. No, there's been a time that I would come in here and that I always felt like. Before you got here. That I was trying to do something that would just help myself, you know, but. What has happened since you've gotten here, you are taking notes of everything we tell you and Senator David and I had two folks that were killed on 135 Highway a couple of years ago when you took that serious, Laurie. And I'll never forget that. And now that road is being fixed and it's got, it's got flashing lights on, on, uh, signs before you get to that on 118 Highway and that road actually drains a big part of Mississippi County coming 2 Poinset County and I just want to tell you thank you because sometimes people will tell you when you do something wrong, but they will not always tell you when you do something right. I appreciate that so much. I say For our employees and for the Rosser is our diets. highest priority, and we take it very. Hard when we lose anyone on the highways or lose one of our employees. Laurie, you might, uh, you might have heard about the, the meeting earlier this morning. Uh, Patrick, you might ought to come up. Are we, are we moving off of the, yeah, we're moving off. We're not going to finish. What can I say one thing? Uh, we're 74% complete with the implementation of the efficiency review. Hm 74% that's what's up there, what we've been able to accomplish. So we're well on our way to finishing. Yeah So there is a lot of discussion this morning about the Azure funds and those rollover uh general revenue funds. Uh, that's been created and you know, Wanting to make lists and, and of those projects and Uh I think this is the appropriate, uh, Place for those reports to come to. Uh, since that time, I know you've got to have some stuff in them by Friday, but I, I'm, I'm gonna be on looking. Uh, beyond what, what's required here to uh to be able to have those reports given in ALC through this subcommittee, uh, Can you, can you, uh. I guess y'all probably talked about it since. Well, actually, about an hour before we left to come to this meeting, we were discussing it, so still a lot of moving parts. We have a meeting tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock with Senator Dismay. And we're gonna make sure we understand what, what's needed, what's required. There seems to have been a misunderstanding of, of the reports that needed to be, um, submitted, but we're gonna get that cleared up and get that, get that going and make sure it's what they want to see. Um, so, yes, we'll keep you informed of that and once all that gets jailed and we know exactly what they want. We'll provide whatever they. Well, the bottom line is we'll provide whatever's asked of us and we'll do it in in. Do it in a way that like you can review it before you submit it to ALC. I think that would be extremely beneficial for us the way, the way we're handling everything else is just worked really well with the highway commission review and advisory subcommittee. I think this is appropriate, you know, once you get all that worked out to uh to have that report to we we can definitely do that, I know you just need one more report. Well, you know. It's OK. I mean, I'm gonna, it's almost a little bit when you see this report in a number of projects that are ongoing across the state, and the amount of coordination, the amount of, you know, administration and the health funds go through these projects. It, it's good for y'all to see that. I think it, it, it kind of opens your eyes of what it means uh to the Azure funds, you said they were categorized with a Y. With a code internally for code of a Y so that that's not that big of a deal, but tracking the other funds that will work out more. We're trying now to, you know, like the director said, get report together to say he Here's a starting point. You know, Adds of funds, regular funds, match funds for each project. Um, you know, maybe some of the, uh, allocation pull all that together. Our our funds are more defined than the federal funds. That's what I wanted to say this morning. You guys don't know what you're gonna get for its continuing resolution then they don't have budgets anymore they just. Maybe a stick some more money on the, on what they give you last time. Am I correct? So you don't really know what you're gonna be having to match, that's true. There's, there's not a, there's nothing concrete with the federal government. That's for sure, and so we, we, but you know, we, we project, we keep our projects going. We keep using that funding so we don't lose any of it. There's a lot of moving parts when it comes to federal funds and I. I think is a point of pride for our dog. We've never lost a dollar of federal money. It was due to the state of Arkansas. We've used it the way we were supposed to, and, uh, and, and use it on projects in the time frame we were given, and so, uh, that's something that we will continue always. We, we, we never want to see $1 go back that belongs to Arkansas. How do you, I mean, with the way the feds do their funding. How do you plan out something, it's a scientific wild guess. I left out the bad words. I understand. I fill in the blanks on that one, but you know, we, you know, we have historical data and we know what traditionally happens even though we're not sure, and we just go and we just keep going, we just keep going forward. And if something goes wrong and we, we misjudged, you know, we read, we refocus, we do what we need to do, but we just make sure we use every dollar. So, uh, I know Memphis had the big push for the new bridge. Was this one of those things where y'all was, uh, In cooperation or did they just, uh, Said We're gonna go, we're gonna push this through this administration. I mean, I mean that the bridge had been repaired and, and, uh. Was up to par. Um, but. Well, well, the I-40 bridge that was repaired with the crack in it. It had gone through a seismic retrofit back in the. Uh I think they're not early 2000s, something like that. I'm not sure when. The I-55 bridge, the grant we the Tennessee and Arkansas got jointly was to replace that 1959 bridge within the old bridge, which is extremely near, I'm sure you, uh, it was built before the interstate, so it's not built to interstate standards. Well, it's, while it's still a safe bridge as far as its structural integrity, it's, it's age. It'd be a good 3 bridge. Well, it's gonna be 6 lane at one time of the day we're here in 21, but, um, we felt like we were, we were on board with Tennessee to ask for that money to replace that I-55 bridge because it needed to be replaced sooner rather than later. And uh then because of that, that is an $800 million project. They awarded $400 million in special federal money over and above what we normally would get. So this was extra money to Arkansas and Tennessee. But then Arkansas and Tennessee will equally share for the remainder, which is 200 million each. And that we had not, you know, we didn't know whether we'd get that money or not. That's a competitive grant. So that's where you have to refocus of where are you going to spend your money because we're gonna have to match that I-55 bridge, and when we found out that that money would be available, but, you know, we regroup and we make it happen, um, you know, it's just part of Making sure we use it back to the fact we use every single dollar we can possibly get for Arkansas, and this is a great $400 million grant to help pay for half of that I-55 bridge is is a big deal. Are they, are they gonna put it in the same area uh general location or they gonna go south? I don't know if it's on the south or the north, but they're going to keep the existing bridge open to traffic while they construct the new bridge. It'll be close to the new it'll be close to the old bridge, the new bridge will be, can't remember if it's on the north or the south. Uh, the old bridge. But it's, it's gonna be 6 lanes, have good shoulders, have, you know, walks. It's gonna be a great bridge to take its way into the future. I just didn't know, you know, got news clippings and didn't know which, which bridge they were talking about the one discussion about a 3rd. Bridge over the Mississippi River and Tennessee and Arkansas both said that's a fine and good, but we need to take care of what we got. We need to replace this bridge before we spend $1 on a 3rd bridge. Thank y'all. Thank you. A little after the fact, do you mind, uh, give us your name and position just for the record, I didn't ask before we started talking. Patrick Patton R. CFO. Thank you. Is there any more discussion on item D? Seeing none out of me. OK, that may be for Mr. Quelbaum. Didn't look far enough down the page. Do you have any other comments that you would like to make? Um, no, just thank y'all. I feel very much. grateful. I know, um, like I said this morning that meeting and some other things that's happened, um. We'll do all we can to, uh, You know, prepare reports, show whatever we need to show. Um, we don't want anyone to Our reports next time. Thank you all if you'd like to introduce yourself, please. Ricky Quantum. I'm the director of the Office of Internal Audit for the Department of Inspector General. Andy Hester, the managing audit coordinator for the Department of Inspector General Office of Internal Audit. And we're looking at exhibit E and Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, um, At this time last year, we presented our first report to the committee. Um, it was a required report by legislation and at that time, the report contained two components. There was a consulting component and an assurance component. The assurance component was centered around and given assurance and issuing an opinion on the, uh, status of the Ardot rules and the um consulting component. was related to working with, um, That are not's internal audit, uh, division to review the internal control structure of a selected number of divisions at our dot. And at the completion of that audit, um, or excuse me that presentation I expressed my concern that there may be a duplication of efforts between our staff and our dots internal audit staff, and so I submitted a request to eliminate the consulting component for this report. And so in January 24, this committee approved and amended engagement letter. Um, so this report that you have in front of you today is, um, Just report to address the implementation of the ROT rules. So in the summer of the work is that we reviewed documentation and performed testing, conducted interviews, did a lot of work in order to get a comfort level on the status of the RO rules, um, and their implementation of those rules. And overall, our conclusion is that we concur with Ardo's reported implementation status for the 90 rules that we reviewed. However, we do have 3 recommendations for best practices, uh, to be considered by our diet. And we've listed those. And real briefly, um, Two of the recommendations are centered around guidehouse recommendation number 8. Which is the gutho recommendation for implementing and documenting best practices and construction project design to ensure consistent use of those best practices, best practices and to enable and demonstrate cost savings. So the two recommendations we have are related to Rule 1 and rule 2. Um, And, and that simply is that the procedures that have been developed by ROt be established in written form and formalized to reduce the risk of deviation from the best practices and also to ensure that cost saving calculations are applied consistently. And the 3rd recommendation we have, uh, is relating to recommendation 12 and 13 that director Tudor just, um, just responded to. And one of the items that, um, they did, uh, an implementing Rule 5 was they hired a compensation specialist. Uh, to perform ongoing job analysis and our recommendation is that the compensation strategy and the procedures used by that specialist, um, for performing analysis, be formalized in writing. Again, that's to ensure consistency in the analysis methods that are used by the specialist and to ensure that the strategy is aligned with the executive leadership goals and objectives. So bottom line is that while we concur that these rules are complete, um, as reported by our dot, we just think that some of these procedures need to be documented in a written form. On this slide, you'll see two charts. Uh, to, to try to demonstrate the implementation status by ourdot. And let me say that, um, The data used for these two charts is as of April. So it's gonna vary slightly from the data that a director Tor just presented to you as far as the implementation status. The chart on the left shows the, um, the rules and implementation status based on the 13 guidehouse recommendations. And the green part of the bar demonstrates the completed port or the completed rules. So you can see that our dot's well on track and implementing the rules. And that's further demonstrated by the chart on the right, which shows, uh, comparison of the implementation status last year versus this year. Again, that would be as of April 23 to April 24. So on April 23, there were 40 completed um rules and in April of this year, there's 58 completed rules for a net increase of 18 completed rules. And as director Tudor just demonstrated that's increased now as of August to '67 completed rules. So they're well on their way to completing these rules. So with that being said, you know, based upon the work that we performed last year and the work that we performed this year, which is an extensive amount of work, we conclude that the information and the reports provided by Argo to this committee are materially accurate and without notable discrepancies. Therefore, it's our opinion that continued involvement as Rdot implements the remaining rules is not a service that adds value to this committee. Uh, therefore we request the committee consider withdrawing the requirement that the Office of Internal Audit perform this annual are not engagement. And with that, That concludes my presentation. I guess it's important to note also that, um, our doc does have an internal audit division. And since this guidehouse study was issued, the internal audit function at our diet has, um, gone through some changes and that they now report functionally to the commission, which it increases their independence. So that's following internal audit standards and so I think as I mentioned last to the committee that I have a long uh working relationship with the uh the chief auditor at Arno. And I'm more than confident in their ability. And so I'm confident that if this committee needs any further, uh, Assistance and overseeing the rule implementation, that they're more than capable of providing that information to you. So with that, we're, we'll be glad to take any questions. Any questions from committee? Senator Johnson. Is this, uh, you're on it. Directed by legislation. Where this committee could not take, uh, to do what you're asking. So the, the language, the language that's in statute now says the Office of Internal Audit may conduct an efficiency study and, and, and it's, it's broad language, to be honest with you, which is While we came to the committee with an engagement letter that more specifically designed what we were going to perform. So I think the first step would be. Um For this committee to agree or disagree whether they want us to continue and if they agree, then we would run legislation during the session, um, with your support, obviously, to remove that requirement. But it does say in the legislation now uses the word may instead of shall, so I think it leaves it leaves some wiggle room. OK. Thank you. Any other comments? I'm sorry, Reba. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um, I know nothing against ourdot and their internal audit. But do you feel like they'll be held to the same standard as what y'all have held them to, if you're no longer in the process. I like I said, we. As far as this engagement and reviewing the status of the rules. We've had, I don't, I don't know, I've had about about 1.5 FTEs assigned to this project for 2 years. And so there's been multiple meetings we've reviewed systems and processes and, and, and a lot of in-depth analysis and we have seen nothing but full transparency from our diet. And so I think the answer is yes. Again, I don't think that's a lot of that is because of my knowledge of, of the chief auditor at Arno who worked with me. For about 14 years. And so I, I see, I see no reason they can't provide that independent analysis, uh, if, if, if it's required. Thank you. Any other comments? Sure So Me personally, I, I don't, I wouldn't like to engage in, in legislation that would completely not compel us to allow an internal audit. That's, that's not what I would want. I would want that ability to, to do that. And with that my language, I think the committee could, could do it, uh. So are you, uh, are you comfortable that your internal audit, uh, can maintain the status that That he's comfortable with that, uh, that we, we can, we can have comfort in. um, so we're committed to fulfilling these 90 rules and, uh, The administration is the commission is our internal audit will make sure we, we will make sure that, that the staff is doing what they say they do when they report to us. But I do think as far as efficiency in government. You know, it is redundant and uh. And it, and also there's something that I, I don't know if you've heard this term, it's called audit fatigue, but we're audited a lot at our dot between, you know, legislative audit, um. Our own auditors, our auditing, auditing us all the time and reporting to the commission and, you know, at some point. I guess it comes down to is this really adding value or is it not? And I think you're going to see the same results whether Ricky and his team continue their doing what they're doing. Um, it's not gonna change the outcome. All right, thank you. Is it Senator Hammer. Yeah. I don't take what I'm about to say wrong, but I'm just, I'm curious, and I, full faith and confidence in the current administration, 100%, no doubt about it. Future though. If it's not going to be you, Director Tudor, and maybe it's somebody else. What's the, if we do away with it. What's the safeguard and how long would it take to catch something. Without two sets of eyes looking at it. OK, and I would just suggest that because it says May. If you start to feel like, um, you know what, I'm, I'm not sure anymore. Bring them back in and let them look and see if there's anything there that's causing. If you're feeling any discomfort as a body, if you're feeling like I'm not sure that this is true, um, what they're reporting to me, um, then you always have that authority to bring them back and that's the way. I would suggest you handle it if you're comfortable saying, OK, for, for the, for the next year, let's see how it goes, but if you want to start it back up again, you can. OK, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Uh, center Stubberville. Uh, Laurie, thank you for, thank you for all you do and thank all of you, but is there a cost associated with the inspector General's audit. Uh, no, sir. Uh, we're funded through the state central Services fund. And so we do not bill for our service, so doing away with this requirement would not Save any No, sir. We, we, we have a small staff I currently, including myself, have a staff of 6 people, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, it'll be up to 7, but we provide services to the, you know, the 15, uh, executive level departments, uh, in addition to conducting investigations that come through our fraud, waste and abuse reporting line. And so we have a, We have a lot of work to perform, uh, for a small staff and, but anyway, I, I digress's all I want to thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Ew Banks. Does this require a motion on behalf of the, I think we're gonna. See what our procedures should be and we'll probably have to address this at the next meeting. Because we need to see what procedural wise how we need to do it. I don't think we will take action on it today. Any other questions or comments? Thank you all. Any other business to come before the committee today? If not, we are adjourned. Sure