New Mexico Dept. of Transportation

Southwest Contractor’s 2008 Public Owner of the Year

The state agency emphasizes partnerships and working together with contractors and engineers, while continually improving the state's transportation infrastructure to make it safer and more efficient.

By Neal Singer

The New Mexico Department of Transportation, which welcomes consultations with contractors, has been selected as Southwest Contractor’s 2008 Public Owner of the Year.

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Partnership, money, forethought and excellent oversight under the direction of Rhonda Vaught enabled an increase in the number and sizes of innovative projects that NMDOT has recently put its stamp on.

“We will listen first, and then we will act together,” Vaught says in NMDOT’s mission statement.  

By using design-build method, NMDOT was able to expedite the design and construction schedule of the interchange at I-40 and Coors Boulevard. The project was selected as Best Transportation Project and Best Alternative Delivery in Southwest Contractor’s Best of 2006 Awards.

State transportation commission chairman Johnny Cope states “In just three years, we have invested nearly $670 million in GRIP road projects, creating 3,500 high-wage construction jobs.”

Fifty-seven construction projects are in process or have been completed.

More than 92% of the money was awarded to New Mexico contractors through an innovative program that segmented construction contracts. The program enabled smaller local contractors to competitively bid for the work, which supported local businesses and kept tax dollars in-state.

The program does not exclude outsiders. “If a national company has an office in New Mexico with real people working here, we consider that a local business,” says New Mexico Sen. Diane Snyder, a member of the Senate Corporation and Transportation Committee and state executive director of the American Council of Engineering Cos. “We look for people who are paying taxes and becoming part of the community, not just people who are coming in and doing a project and leaving.”

NMDOT, like every organization, has had its problems, but its openness makes fixing them easier. When payments to contractors were not made in timely fashion last summer, “We talked about it and fixed it,” says Associated Contractors of New Mexico former president Benny Roybal, area manager for Cutler Repaving of Lawrence, Kan., and Associated Contractors of New Mexico former president.

Mike Gibson, executive director of ACNM, adds, “DOT understands the value of working in partnership. I’ve seen other states where I’ve represented Associated General Contractors. The contractors were in one corner, the engineers in another and the DOT in the third. And they never came out of their corners. If you have a hole in your boat and no one’s talking, you’re all going to go under.”

In addition to building and maintaining highways that underpin the state’s economic boom, NMDOT supervises the building and maintenance of the train line currently ferrying passengers between Belen and Bernalillo. The agency also removes snow, ice and mud from New Mexico roads and is responsible for building and maintaining New Mexico airports.

But NMDOT, like other DOTs nationally, faces dwindling federal monies from the Federal Highway Fund. Though Snyder says, “Our severance fund is very healthy,” referring to taxes collected on natural resources removed from state lands.

Most DOT construction costs are going through the roof because contractors face competition for resources such as oil (a key component of asphalt) from the expanding economies of India and China.  And more needs to be done to attract new construction workers.

About rising prices, New Mexico’s deputy secretary of transportation and highway operations Robert Ortiz says, “We’ve managed to keep [construction cost] inflation down over the last four years below 34%, which is well below what other states are experiencing. We’ve also been rated fourth in the nation in efficient use of resources.”

He says that to keep costs down, the department has reduced the risk of asphalt price escalations to contractors. “If the asphalt cost goes up more than 10% from baseline at the time of biddings, we will share in the cost of that,” he adds.

  While the policy eases the nerves of contractors, it also means, that “the public gets a better price,” Ortiz says. “Contractors bid lower, more competitively.”  Additionally, Ortiz says, the state expects a favorable adjustment should the cost of asphalt decline.

Rhonda G. Faught, P.E., heads NMDOT as cabinet secretary.

Other efficiencies involve NMDOT’s rethinking of common construction  practices. For example, Ortiz says, “We now use alternative pavement sections for road shoulders and road driving lanes. In the past, if our paving design called for 7 in. of pavement, we carried that to the shoulder.  Now we’ve found we don’t need to build that shoulder as thick as the driving lane.”

NMDOT also maintains approximately 150 highway inspectors with extensive training in materials and ethics who form the basis of the department’s quality control, he says.

But Ortiz says that the No. 1 reason for NMDOT’s success is that “our design process looks at projects from inception to delivery in partnership with the contracting community. Good specifications mean a quality project.”

Cutler Repaving’s Roybal adds, “The NMDOT has open communication. We invited them to ACNM’s midyear meeting and they made a presentation about upcoming projects.  It was beneficial to everyone.”

And Gray Kite, general manager of Albuquerque’s Twin Mountain Construction II, says, “In any public works project under their jurisdiction, they’re intimately involved.”  The company, a subsidiary of Kiewit Corp., completed the largest public works project in New Mexico’s history in 2002, the $221 million Big I interchange between I-40 and I-25 in Albuquerque.

Robert Ortiz, P.E., deputy secretary, highway operations.

The success of NMDOT has been essential to the well-being of New Mexico, ACNM’s Gibson says.  “I’ve been all over the state and listened to mayors and country commissioners giving major accolades to the governor and the GRIP program.

“Enhanced roadways increase opportunities for residential, retail, commercial and industrial development.  The DOT GRIP program is why New Mexico is going through a major renaissance in economic development. You can get a product from point A to point B in the most cost-effective manner.”

But NMDOT does more than put work out to bid. It also helps train the next generation of workers. A joint program between NMDOT and ACNM offers classes and labs for general certification up to federal standards in concrete, asphalt and soils.

“NMDOT and ACNM offer the most cost-effective and unique blend of public and private anywhere,” Gibson adds. “It’s our best-kept secret.”   

The program on average trains 1,500 students a year, costs only $250 per course and hasn’t had a price increase in 10 years, he says.

The DOT’s good work has been noticed out of state as well.

In 2007, awards came from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association for the Coors/I-40 interchange public involvement program. Special mention was made by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials for NMDOT’s innovation in performance measures and quality measures that reward efforts to improved performance and quality of life. 

 And Southwest Contractor magazine included the engineering design on I-40 from Carnuel to Tijeras, just east of Albuquerque, in its Best of 2007 “Editor’s Choice” list. The innovative use of tires for structural road support (the US 550/Arroyo Penasco Retaining Wall) was a winner in Southwest Contractor’s engineering design category.

With widespread awareness in the contracting community of upcoming possible shortfalls in construction funds, the New Mexico Legislature convened a transportation technical committee in September to look into future funding options for highways. The committee, with technical support from NMDOT, concluded that redirected or new monetary sources would be needed to maintain and improve New Mexico roads.

Under consideration is legislation that would allow NMDOT to keep construction gross receipts taxes instead of funneling them to the general fund. Also under consideration is a motor excise tax and possible gas tax increases.

A task force then presented the technical committee’s conclusions to New Mexico residents in late 2007.

“Based on my participation in the governor’s task force, the overall response around New Mexico is that an increase in taxes would not be a problem if directed strictly at the DOT road fund,” Roybal says.

So the partnership of NMDOT with the state and its contractors continues to provide a safe, multimodal transportation system that serves everyone in the state.

Useful Sources
For more information on NMDOT projects, visit their website at http://nmshtd.state.nm.us

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