Auditor general says Alberta government failing to track if highway maintenance is done right

The Alberta government and its highway maintenance contractors aren't properly tracking whether hundreds of millions of dollars of roadwork is up to snuff, says a new report from Alberta's auditor general.

Brad Ireland, assistant auditor general,  says a review of work by the provincial Department of Transportation and Economic Corridors between 2021 and 2023 found employees weren't recording which stretches of repaired or cleared highway they had inspected, or when, nor had they taken photos to document the conditions of the roads.

The auditor general's office also found that the department is awarding sole-source contracts to existing contractors for extra work, like culvert repair and surface patching, without taking some expensive contracts to tender.

"The department spends a lot of money to maintain its highways," concludes the report, which was released on Monday.

"It needs effective systems to ensure contractors do the work they are getting paid for and any extra work it gives the contractors follows its procurement policies."

The province has about 64,000 kilometres of road to maintain.

The government pays seven contractors about $320 million annually to mow grass on the side of the road, clean bridges, tidy rest areas, maintain road lines and signs, and clear snow and ice.

The report says more than a third of that budget is for winter maintenance, and about a quarter pays to patch, grade and clear highway surfaces.

Each contract has a different structure, but either ministry staff are responsible for inspecting the work before paying for it, or the contractor itself is expected to audit its work and provide evidence of it to the government.

Some contracts also require the contractor to report how it responded to public feedback about road conditions. The government also has the ability to withhold payment if the quality of road paint, sand or salt fails to meet standards.

The audit found that during two snowstorms, a contractor didn't adequately record snow accumulation as it should have, and the department didn't flag the information as missing.

In another case, the government relied on a contractor to audit road conditions for more than four years, when the contract stipulated that it was the government's job.

The auditor also looked at 23 work orders in which the government was responsible for checking the work before paying the contractor. In 20 cases, staff said they visually inspected the work, but didn't document it.

The report examined eight work orders of salt and ice control materials worth $1.3 million. In six cases, there was no evidence the government tested whether the materials were of the required quality.

Sole-source contracts

In the three years examined, the auditor general's office found the transportation ministry was paying about $54 million annually to the contractors for extra work, like unplanned paving.

For jobs that cost more than $100,000, provincial policy requires the government to put the contract to tender. There are exceptions when it's an emergency or there are no other qualified contractors. The report said a benefit of this policy is that the public gets the work done for the best possible price.

When the auditor general looked at 10 work orders, nine of them were worth more than $100,000 and four had no records about why transportation sole-sourced the work. Department staff who were supposed to be getting three quotes for each job had only obtained one potential price for the work.

Ireland said in an interview there were no emergencies when the government awarded some of that work.

"It was meant to start out as smaller stuff, and it ballooned to this larger number," Ireland said.

The auditor general recommended the transportation ministry improve its process of ordering extra work, and improve monitoring to make sure highway maintenance contractors are meeting requirements.

In a statement, Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen said he accepts the recommendations.

"While improvements may be required for documentation related to monitoring the performance of its highway maintenance contracts, the department continues to ensure the contractors meet service levels to keep the highway network safe," said Dreeshen in a statement Monday.

Ron Glen, CEO of the Alberta Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association, says all seven contractors maintaining provincial highways are members of the industry association.

He said the report doesn't flag any concerns with the quality of their work, just whether anyone documented inspections.

He said, if the government wants the contractors to provide more records, they will. 

"If they go out and they say the work is being done, and that's the most important thing, then is the added administration worth it or not?" he said.

During a winter storm, Glen said the priority is getting the right equipment onto the roads quickly, rather than recording the conditions and evidence of the work.

Although the association supports opening up contracts to tender, Glen said calling for bids on small repair projects is slower, and delays risk missing construction season, which postpones what could be quick work. He said the government may want to revisit its policy of requiring tenders for this type of job.