SALEM, Ore.–The Oregon Department of Transportation is adding another item to the state’s ongoing list of budget problems — a $1 billion one. That’s just one money and transportation issue, of many for the state.
ODOT made a pretty big accounting error. Its assistant director had to go before lawmakers to explain how they thought they had a billion dollars more than they actually did.
He blamed a tool ODOT used to forecast funding that made it look like they had a lot more federal money in the bank than they actually do. He said it, “ Translated that into immediate federal reimbursements in the budget rather than federal reimbursements at some later date. So as a result, the cashflow model looking at this mix of projects over time that was heavily front loaded, projected a very large amount of federal reimbursement in the 2325 biennium that was actually well beyond the amount of federal funding that is available to ODOT over that period of time because our federal funds are constrained. Some of it would come in later, but we were projecting it in the 23-25 biennium.”…