PROVIDENCE

A previously undisclosed, 2006 Federal Highway Administration audit slams Rhode Island for ceding almost total control over the scope, cost, need — and even the safety — of its multimillion-dollar bridge-design and repair program to consultants.

The year-old “Structural Design Program Review Report” cites “systemic problems of proportion which we typically do not encounter.” Among the findings:

•With more than 600 bridges across the state to keep in safe condition for travel, the DOT’s structural-design program “is currently less effective than the structural design programs in most other state highway agencies.”

•Despite 780 employees and a $338.8-million state and federally financed budget, the agency does not have one “expert” in hydraulic and geotechnical engineering on staff, “which is essential for the oversight of safe and cost-effective foundation and wall design. … The RIDOT relies on consultants for these services and has no expertise or systematic program in place to measure the adequacy or efficiency” of their recommendations.

•Other in-house staff lack “basic levels of engineering expertise,” which the report attributed, at least in part, to departmental moves that have “greatly diminished the staff’s hands-on involvement and understanding of specific design requirements, leading to a lack of control…”

•The state transportation agency has even used consultant services to generate design guidelines for other consultants, “such as the recently drafted RIDOT Bridge Design Manual.”

Most of these “deficiencies” were not only noted by the federal highway review team, which included the state bridge engineer in Delaware, the report said, they were “validated during interviews” with the DOT’s bridge-office staff last September.

Upset that they have been relegated to the role of “commenters,” the bridge office design engineers told the federal reviewers that, in several instances, consultants have challenged the “authority” of DOT project managers to review, let alone question their designs and computations.

Bottom line: “We know of no SHA [state highway agency] that does not have staff that is dedicated to maintain state of the art expertise in foundation and hydraulic design in order to perform effective [quality control] of consultant design products,” the report said.

“The extent to which the RIDOT staff has indicated their lack of understanding and application of design standards in routine and major bridge, foundation and hydraulic design suggests that RIDOT is not achieving the intended level of oversight that is required as part of the FHWA/RIDOT ‘Oversight Agreement’ for federal-aid projects.”

The report, titled “Rhode Island Department of Transportation Structural Design Program Review Report CY 2006,” was obtained by The Journal under a public-records request. Neither the DOT nor the FHWA responded to inquiries about when it was delivered to Rhode Island officials.

But after obtaining a copy of the report, H. Chris Der Vartanian, chief of the Department of Administration’s audit bureau, last week wrote another member of the Governor Carcieri-appointed task force reviewing DOT contracting practices that: “Based on the RIDOT’s current practices, it appears that the design consultants are driving the scope of work rather than the RIDOT performing this task.”

If the DOT were “better able to clearly define the scope of the work, the department might be better able to control the costs surrounding the projects and possibly reduce the number of contract addendums,” Der Vartanian wrote.

The task force, headed by newly reinstated state Lottery Director Gerald Aubin — a former deputy Providence police chief — was assembled by Carcieri a month ago following reports in The Journal about the DOT’s payment of, what he termed, “outrageous” overhead rates.

With a 145.99-percent “overhead” rate — and a 10-percent guaranteed “profit” — the DOT was, for example, paying a consulting firm, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, the equivalent of $102,858 to provide a typist for the DOT traffic-monitoring center located in a corner of the agency’s state-owned building across from the State House.

This past weekend, the Sunday Journal put the spotlight on a series of contracts the DOT has given the Plexus Corp. — a small Smith Hill company owned by David Giardino, the son of DOT chief engineer Edmund T. Parker’s brother-in-law, Nicholas Giardino, who in turn is the contract administrator for the company doing construction on the massive, $577-million Route 195 relocation: the Cardi Corp.

The first Plexus contract started relatively small and then grew over a decade into a $6.6-million source of business for the company without ever again going out to bid. New assignments included the “reorganization and consolidation” of two of the DOT operating manuals cited in the FHWA report: a design policy manual and a bridge manual.

In August 2005, Parker voted to recommend Plexus for a new four-year, $9-million contract doing construction-schedule monitoring that officials in some other states, such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, say they generally leave to their in-house staffs. The FHWA is unable to cite another state that has entrusted all of its contract schedule-monitoring to a single, private consultant.

(In the small-world department, the Giardinos — David and his wife, Leslie — have given political contributions to only a handful of candidates in recent years, among them: Carcieri and onetime Warwick Council candidate Karenlee Bernardo, the VHB typist for whom the DOT was paying the equivalent of $102,858. There was no explanation for the coincidence from the Giardinos last week.)

While DOT Director Jerome Williams did not respond directly yesterday to the many questions raised by the FHWA report, Der Vartanian in his June 7 letter to Aubin, said; “The director of RIDOT has informed this task force that the department has halted any new consulting contracts until our review is complete.”

A Washington-based FHWA spokesman, Doug Hecox, sought to downplay the significance of the 2006 report by an arm of his federal agency.

He issued this statement: “Through outsourced engineering, Rhode Island’s DOT manages bridge design work in a manner consistent with, though not identical to, that of other states. The state Departments of Transportation of Alabama, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and a few other states outsource all or nearly all of their respective bridge design work.

“Many states do a percentage of bridge design work in-house but some, like RIDOT, do outsource quite a bit as well. Outsourced or not,” he said, “RIDOT oversees what the consultants are doing and FHWA also ensures that federal requirements are met. Highway safety is not impaired. That said, RIDOT is in the process of upgrading its in-house design expertise.”

But a spokesman for Carcieri said he is “extremely frustrated by the number of concerns that have arisen at DOT.”

Jeff Neal said Carcieri was unaware of the FHWA findings until just recently. “Unfortunately, it is clear that DOT leadership has had no incentive to bring many of these issues to the governor’s attention.

“He certainly should have been briefed on such an important document,” Neal said. But, “I do not believe that the governor was ever briefed or even made aware of the Federal Highway audit to which you refer…. For years, some DOT officials have largely taken the position that they are untouchable because they are spending primarily federal money, or because of a presumption that only DOT can understand the complex engineering issues involved in their work.”

Asked if he was speaking about former DOT Director James Capaldi, who retired in December after three-plus decades with the agency, Neal said: “I have no comment on former Director Capaldi.” Asked the circumstances in which he left, Neal said: “I can’t comment on that question.”

“At the end of the day,” Neal said, “the most important thing is that these concerns are being unearthed and the new DOT director, Jerry Williams, is actively working to implement reforms.”

kgregg@projo.com