By Ralph Vartabedian – CalMatters
After a decade of cost, schedule, technical, regulatory, personnel and legal problems, the California high speed rail project will be getting an inspector general soon as part of a deal between Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature.
The new investigative position is intended to intensify oversight and improve performance of the $105 billion railroad project. Enthusiasm for the change is high, but whether it will fix everything is uncertain, even among state leaders.
“There is nothing but problems on the project,” said Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Lakewood Democrat. “The inspector general provides oversight and some sense of what is going on with management. That has been missing for a long time.”
But will it work?
“We don’t know,” Rendon said. “We need to be vigilant. The IG will provide what we need to carry that out.”
Until now, a variety of outside agencies have advised the Legislature and the governor on the project, resulting in recommendations that often were not carried out. In some cases, they required changes that nobody had the power to make and in other cases carried too high a political price with outside interest groups.
In 2012, the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommended against an appropriation to start construction, arguing the California High-Speed Rail Authority wasn’t prepared. Gov. Jerry Brown lobbied the Legislature for it and won. Now, many agree the LAO was right. The Peer Review Group has long warned that the state needs a secure financing plan. But the project proceeds without one.
Such outside advisors have lacked the resources and the mission to intensively delve into the day to day work of the rail project, its army of consultants and its stable of international contractors.
“The IG will bring a level of oversight that we have not had before,” said Helen Kerstein, the lone bullet train expert at the Legislative Analyst’s office. “This is very powerful.”
The law creating the inspector general lists a wide range of authorities the new office will have: full access to all the project’s records; authority to review contracts and change orders; and issuing subpoenas for witnesses and records, among much else.
“It is not some person sitting in a basement,” said Laura Friedman, chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee who is widely credited with pushing through the inspector general idea. “It is going to be staffed. It is going to be real.”
That would include investigating waste, fraud and abuse, as well as working with law enforcement and prosecutors, she said.
What the position might look like
How big an organization will it require? So far, there is no budget. But the inspector general for the high-speed rail project would be paid the same as the inspector general for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, who makes $192,382 and will have a staff of 212 in the coming fiscal year.
Fred Weiderhold, a West Point civil engineer who served for 20 years as Amtrak’s inspector general, said if he were taking the California job, he would want to start with a staff of at least 50 people, half auditors, 30% investigators and 20% inspectors and evaluators.
“It is a daunting job,” Weiderhold said about the California project. “You have to follow the money. I guarantee you that on any project this large you will have fraud, product substitution and waste.”
By the time Weiderhold left as Amtrak inspector general, he had helped put several hundred people in jail and caused 2,000 people to be fired.
The high speed rail inspector general will not have authority to control actual spending, a decision that was considered and rejected by Newsom.
A more aggressive plan was followed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in 2015, when it faced a breakdown in Boston area service and spiraling capital cost overruns. State lawmakers fired the authority’s existing board and installed a new Fiscal and Management Control Board.
Estimated construction costs on a 4.3 mile extension of a light rail line had grown from $1 billion to $2 billion, said Joe Aiello, the board’s chair. The board stopped work, threw out existing contractors and put in an independent team to evaluate what was going wrong, he said.
“There was outrageous scope creep,” Aiello said.
By the time the board was dissolved last year, the construction cost had been hammered back down to $1 billion, he said.
Even while increasing oversight, the deal doubles down on the bullet train mission. An appropriation will release $4.2 billion from a 2008 bond fund, but only for completing a 171-mile Central Valley segment from Bakersfield to Merced.
“They need to deliver something soon that the public understands is a train,” Friedman said.
Newsom met another Assembly demand by adding $3.5 billion for transit projects in the Bay Area and Southern California, as well as $300 million to fix an Orange County Amtrak rail that is ready to fall into the Pacific.
“You can’t have enough oversight on a project like this,” Friedman said. “This is not a minor change. It will be a very big change for the project.”
This was a utopian dream from the start. They could have successfully built a high speed train using existing technology for 1/3 the price, but elected to go with a pipe dream of travel time under two hours, not to mention expected ridership to pencil out the cost which would see trains arriving every ten minutes into downtown San Francisco. Such a waste.
Unfortunately this is just more BS and a continuing waste of taxpayer funds. It appears that 3/4 of California voters are as ignorant as the politicians they keep electing. Wake up, it’s time for a positive change!
Half a billion a mile. Wonder what it cost the Japanese or Chinese per mile? Hate to see the cost of the train.
I remember the bullet train being considered in the late 1970’s into the 80’s in Sacramento. The office was set up in the old Western Pacific railroad building at 19th and J streets. Been a long train ride and still a long way off.
I think they should have started with the “massive” tunnel project under the Grapevine which could handle vehicle traffic as well. No more closures due to snow storms, fires, etc.
And don’t forget, Newsom’s uncle Pelosi has a financial interest in this. Naturally Newsom is going to push the bullet train as hard as he can.
Tax and spend liberals. They specialize in first making taxes and then getting a cut before any actual spending. Here, they created several more high salary bureaucrats and other workers who will be affirmative action and Marxist under qualified and poor work ethic employees. Big engineering projects can’t seem to get done anymore without becoming bloated over budget white elephants. CA needs new or expanded dams, not trains. The water is becoming undrinkable, tastes toxic.
Let the money laundering begin! (Again!). That’s all this boondoggle is.
Newsom is just tring to cover up his mismanagement of state funds for this project before he tries to run for President in 2024. They will try and point the finger at Gov. Jerry Brown when in fact Newsom was also lobbying with Jerry Brown in early stages of this project.
Quit pissing away money on that POS project. What we need is Water, Gas, Electricity, Cops, Lower Tax’s and fix the damn Potholes.
Personally, I believe the State should be required to return all the money they stole from the tax payers for the last 20 years for this fiasco.
There’s too many laws and regulations, so let’s create more laws to oversee the old laws. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, they create a mass boondoggle, and think they can fix it by creating another boondoggle.
China’s high speed rail is costing them $300 billion. It also happens to be the longest high speed rail in the world. We are getting to $100billion.
What would be a suitable alternative that relies on sustainable energy?
Newsom could get $20 billion from Biden if he just promised to let illegals and racial minority groups ride free. I like how they talk about how effective this new position has been on other projects then at the end says how Newsom is limiting the position’s power therefore in typical Democrat style nothing will get done.
Only if they have a time machine so they can go back to 1980 and push this through when it was affordable. We’re living in a different era now.
That train will be a drain of taxpayer dollars forever.
$105 billion in 2020’s dollars to install and implement 1960’s technology, and they still can’t get it done. I am sure Friends of Jerry got all their vig. I wonder if unctuous gavvy is now part of that green paper gravy train.
I was just driving up Ygnacio when the right lane was blocked off. They had dug a small hole in the road and one guy was in the hole working. Ten men and one woman were standing there in their yellow vests watching and talking. Now you know why high speed rail cost a half billion a mile. Just like PG&E workers they can’t do a thing without a squad.
This is the state where to build just HALF a bridge, completed TEN YEARS LATE and $5 Billion over budget.
But why should they care ? ? ?
It’s not like they’re spending THEIR money.
Imagine how much better CA could be if competency were a requirement to retain public office or a job as an unelected bureaucrat ? ? ? ?
“The best minds are not in government.
If any were, business would steal them away.”
–Ronald Reagan
There are a lot of people getting very rich off the tax payers dollar.
The High Speed Rail needs to go to the garbage can and rot there.
Even if it ever gets built, it will never work.
Just look at Bart.
This rail is just to fast-track illegals and drugs deep into California. The mex. cartels will be defacto running operations. Just like how bart is now, normal people will be afraid to ride the trains but we will be paying tax dollars to spread mexico into the heart of the US.
Simple solution … hire the Japanese to get the job done … nuff said!!!
“I’ll take “Money Laundering” for $105 billion, Alex.”
This entire project is akin to paying someone to move a woodpile to one side of a yard, and then paying them to move it back again, and again, and again. Yes, someone gets a paycheck, but that’s all it is.