Since 2011, the cost of the Southwest Light Rail project has doubled to more than $2.8 billion and has blown past several completion dates, leading to an investigation of the project.
Judy Randall, Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor, joined News Talk 830 WCCO’s Morning News on Wednesday morning to discuss the overdue and over-budget Southwest Light Rail project.
Randall discussed a follow-up to the initial audit of the Metropolitan Council that was released in March. The auditor shared that while the first report was a high-level audit on funding, planning, and communication, Wednesday’s new report went a little deeper.
“This report kind of goes the next level down and looks at the Metropolitan Council’s oversight of the primary construction contractors on the project,” Randall shared. “Looking especially at how it handled work that was different from the contract requirements.”
Randall shared that the report found the council did adequately provide oversight for the contractors working on the project, leading to overspending and missed deadlines.
“We found the MetCouncil has not adequately enforced a lot of aspects of its key construction contracts,” the auditor shared. “Nor did it have the adequate documentation we would expect to support these project decisions.”
Randall shared that one mechanism built into the contract was to withhold or deduct payment when the project was not being completed correctly or on time.
However, she says that the Met Council didn’t use the mechanism as it did not have the “willingness to enforce aspects of the contract.”
“We found a number of places where they did not require the contractor to meet the contractual obligations that were established in the initial contract,” Randall said.
Randall did share that it seems the council may have been worried that if they did take a harder line in enforcing the contractor to follow the contractor, the contractor would have litigated or walked away.
“The council wasn’t willing to take that risk, and you know, I think there probably is some wisdom to that at this point in the project,” Randall shared. “But, whether that was the correct approach all along, I think, is an open question.”
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