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While the Oregon Department of Transportation prepares for an anticipated nosedive in federal funding, it isn’t handling ‘realities of today,’ a state audit found.

The Secretary of State‘s audit raised two main issues – how ODOT is preserving institutional knowledge in the wake of workforce attrition and how it’s dealing with workforce issues today, said Tony Green, spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office.

ODOT is aiming to reduce its workforce – without laying people off – by 5 percent by 2015. The agency’s “right-sizing” program, started in 2011, was implemented to pay for personnel to handle highway projects rather than temporary bonded projects that are expected to increase through 2019.

“In the face of declining revenues, ODOT (officials are) using attrition to reduce their workforce and relying on temporary workers,” Green said. “They are anticipating funding falling off the cliff rather than dealing with the realities of today.”

ODOT’s Highway Division lost more than 400 employees from 2008-13; also, 35 percent of its staff will be eligible for retirement in the next five years, according to the audit.

“In the medium to long term … a significant percentage of (the division’s) employees (are) eligible for retirement,” Green said. “ODOT doesn’t have a significant plan to capture the knowledge and experience before those planners leave.”

The audit also found that two areas where ODOT was not meeting its recommended best practices – design and inspections – were of critical importance within the agency’s construction program.

ODOT accepted the findings of the audit, but questioned whether it makes sense to add people to deal with temporary bonded projects.

The agency is trying to get leaner as temporary bonded projects – Connect Oregon, the Jobs and Transportation Act of 2009 and the Oregon Transportation Investment Act – run their course. ODOT wants to avoid painful layoffs that would come from hiring permanent employees, ODOT spokesman Dave Thompson said.

“We’re trying to do it in a way that manages not to have to lay off a bunch of people,” he said. “If we wait until the end of the projects, our fear has been to reduce our workforce too quickly.”

ODOT also will work to improve its succession planning for technical positions, and shift resources to maintain quality, Thompson said.

“We accept that we’ve got work to do in succession planning,” he said.