Iowa DOT reaching limit on downsizing, director tells lawmakers

DES MOINES - The Iowa Department of Transportation is taking Gov. Terry Branstad's 'smaller, smarter government” mantra to heart, according to Interim Director Mark Lowe.

The department's 'smarter, simpler, customer driven” vision 'frames the way the department thinks … (and) underwrites what we do,” Lowe told the Legislature's Transportation, Infrastructure and Capital Appropriations Subcommittee Tuesday.

Although lawmakers raised the motor fuel tax 10 cents a gallon in 2015 to give the DOT more funds for construction and maintenance issues, Lowe said the department has been forced to innovate to meet those challenges as it has downsized its workforce.

Since 2015, revenues have increased from $1.4 billion to more than $1.6 billion in 2016. Before that, Lowe said, actual dollars after inflation had been declining. Measured in constant dollars - based on the Iowa Construction Costs Index that factors in the effects of inflation on roadway construction costs and corresponding loss of buying power - the RUTF is the same today as in 1990 as, according to the DOT.

Maintaining that buying power is a 'positive trend,” he said.

Part of the department's effort to stretch dollars has resulted in trimming its staff by about 30 percent, from 3,930 in 1997 to 2,789 today. However, the reduction will continue as the department is looking for 67 positions to eliminate without layoffs or a change in current standards to bring staffing to 2,722, Lee Wilkinson, Operations and Finance Division director, said. That will bring full-time equivalent (FTE) staffing to 2,632.

The DOT can meet its service demand at that level, Lowe said, but warned that without funding to cover step/merit pay increases, cost-of-living increases, changes in insurance costs and the impact of previous salary changes, snow removal, construction project inspection and driver's license issuance will be 'significantly affected.”

'We can meet service demands and new obligations coming our way,” he said, 'but we are getting to the bottom of where we can be without reducing services” because core functions, like plowing snow, for example, can't be automated.

'At this point, we're not asking to grow, but to create a level of stability to meet future demands,” he said.

Lowe also discussed the Road Use Tax Fund and department operations with the House Transportation Committee Tuesday.

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