一份新的美国政府问责办公室（GAO）报告发现，许多州运输部（DOTS）继续频繁地转向私人工程顾问，以援助联邦高速公路公路建设项目的各个方面。18luck官网

The GAOreport, released on April 19, includes results of a 2021 survey of DOTs from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. It also included a deeper look at eight states, with interviews with state transportation officials, auditors, labor organizations and engineering firms.

The congressionally requested report showed that half of the state DOTs spent at least 60% of their total engineering and design-related costs for such highway projects on outside engineering consultants。

It also found that 50 of the 52 agencies surveyed said that factors related to the size and skills of their in-house work force was a very important or moderately important reason in their decisions to employ engineering consultants.

Joung Lee, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' (AASHTO) deputy director and chief policy officer, says, "It's good to get a state of play [or] update in the form of the survey data that they got from our members."

李补充说：“就代表什么而言，我认为那里没有任何惊喜。国家点继续真正重视与所有人的伙伴关系，包括……特别是顾问社区。”

Steve Hall, American Council of Engineering Companies' (ACEC) senior vice president for advocacy, adds, " I think the report highlighted that the relationship between the industry and our DOT partners is strong and has gotten stronger in recent years."

Hall says, "We're all having to operate in an environment where the competition for talent is pretty fierce. But at the end of the day it's a good team in terms of delivering projects to the public."

GAO从2021年6月至10月进行了报告的调查部分，因此，数据预先提前了大量的高速公路资金，该州已经开始从《基础设施投资和就业法案》（IIJA）中获得。

That measure was signed into law Nov. 15.

Lee says AASHTO didn't have current data on whether state DOTs were increasing their use of engineering consultants or adding to their in-house staffs to handle the big wave of highway funding coming from the IIJA.

Regarding the infrastructure act dollars, he says, "We're certainly mindful of not just putting them to use, but putting them to best use."

Lee adds, "I think pretty much everybody is in the same boat, whether you're in the public sector or private sector—facing the same kind of general challenges regarding workforce availability [and] inflationary pressures."

霍尔说，ACEC预计，随着《基础设施法》资金推出，国家点的使用可能会增加。

He adds, "We're hearing anecdotally from our state organizations that the states may need help from industry in a program management capacity."

霍尔说,随着IIJA资金注入,”它's reasonable to assume" state DOTs' reliance on the engineering industry will increase. "That talent shortage is a challenge," he says, "but as always, we'll figure out a way to get it done."

Besides the survey, GAO's work on the report included more detailed looks at eight state DOTs: California, Connecticut, Iowa, Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Texas and Utah.

GAO还采访了四家工程公司以及州审计机构和劳工组织。这些公司是Hntb Corp.，Mark Thomas Co.，Nobis Group和Stanley Consultants。

The report found that 26 of the 52 DOTs “reported they used engineering consultants extensively”—that is, the cost of consultant engineers accounted for at least 60% of the agencies’ dollars spent on total engineering and design-related expenses for federal-aid highway projects.

在这26个州中的9个州中，顾问费用至少占项目总工程和设计成本的80％。18luck官网18luck.cub

In addition, 48 of the 52 DOTs said that their use of engineering consultants on federal-aid highway projects increased or stayed flat over the past five years.

在选择更多详细信息的GAO的八个点中，四名表示他们对顾问的使用已上升：“因为[DOTS]的工作量增加了，而州DOT员工的数量却没有。”

GAO also looked at the question of relative costs of engineering consultants and state DOTs' staffs, reviewing reports and asking about the topic in the interviews it conducted for the report.

According to the report, some officials said consultants may be more costly than DOT staff in the short term. But others whom GAO spoke with said consultants may be more cost-effective in the long term for federal-aid highway construction projects, when costs of state workers' salaries and benefits are weighed.

作为研究的一部分，GAO还联系新利luck了联邦公路管理局（FHWA）部门官员，并表示，如联邦法规所要求的那些官员，对使用工程顾问的州机构的政策和程序进行了审查和批准的政策。GAO确定他们通常解决了处理顾问合同的所需点。

The report also said FHWA assessments found that the DOTs' use of engineering consultants "generally poses a low risk" to the federal-aid highway contracts.