By Jasmine Hall
Jackson Hole News&Guide
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

JACKSON — A $750,000 efficiency study is up for debate as the Wyoming Legislature considers funneling more state tax dollars into the Wyoming Department of Transportation’s budget.

The Joint Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee sponsored a bill that would require a third party to evaluate WYDOT on its rules, policies and procedures and distribution of staff and resources. 

However, the study would only be triggered by the passage of legislation in the upcoming session that allocates more dollars to the highway fund.

The trigger would give WYDOT the ability to feel like it’s not “robbing the roads to perform the study,” according to WYDOT Director Darin Westby.

WYDOT officials have been echoing concerns for decades about the lack of state funding and operating in a maintenance-only mode. When Teton Pass collapsed in June, Westby told the Jackson Hole News&Guide federal dollars would be vital in completing the repair because the transportation agency continues to work in a $500 million annual deficit.

Westby told the Transportation Committee that he welcomed participation in the study. He said the agency continues to evaluate and identify efficiencies, whether that be for an annual financial audit or after a project is finished.

But there were two points of concern, both of which were addressed by lawmakers before sponsoring the draft legislation.

Originally the committee only appropriated $250,000 in the draft bill for the study. Westby said studies WYDOT has done in the past were not cheap. An example from 2019 was $680,000.

“To get something in the range of depth and scope and detail that I think we all would be proud of the document, it’s going to be north of $500,000 for sure,” he said.

Co-chair Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, agreed with Westby. He said the $250,000 appropriation was subpar with the goals the Legislature had in mind.

The committee agreed on increasing the appropriation to $750,000.

The second concern was the timeline. The committee gave WYDOT less than a year to get a preliminary study laid out for the Legislature, and a year and a month for the final report.

“Knowing that it took me almost a year to know all the 47 programs that we have, I couldn’t imagine another outsider and the consultant team coming in and diving into all those programs and everything that we’re looking at within a year,” Westby said.

Thus, the date was pushed back to 2026, and the trigger mechanism on the bill was included.

A larger discussion was also had about what efficiency looked like. Rep. Jerry Obermueller, R-Casper, said when a separate efficiency report on the government at large was done, “what we found in that study was that we needed to spend more money to be more efficient.” He asked WYDOT if this was the case for transportation.

The answer was yes. Westby reiterated the transportation agency was only maintaining roads because there were only so many funds and plenty of miles of road to take care of the right way.

“If we had more money, we would probably do a cost-benefit analysis to see whether it makes more sense to do a reconstruction of a road as opposed to just maintaining the surface — just putting a nice black coat over it with new stripes,” he said.

Although he said the black coat and new stripes might make “everybody feel good and it might extend the life for about six to seven years,” a brand new resurface that costs more could last two decades. He said it would keep them from coming back to communities frequently and save on inflation.

“It’s a benefit to the public not being under construction every seven years on every stretch of road,” he said.