Another day, another blow to the viability of California's high-speed rail boondoggle. I've written here in the past about how the project has become widely unpopular because of cost overruns, the failure to lay down a single inch of track, and a non-existent business plan. Now it has a new liability: contracts designed to get around the competitive bidding process. From the Sacramento Bee:
"Without sufficient staffing," [a report by State Auditor Elaine Howle] said, "the [California High-Speed Rail] Authority has struggled to oversee its contractors and subcontractors, who outnumber its employees by about 25 to one."
Howle also said the rail authority violated a state rule prohibiting agencies from splitting contracts to avoid competitive bidding requirements, dividing $3.1 million in information technology services into 13 different contracts with one vendor over 15 months.
There is one silver lining to this news about naked cronyism: we know now there's at least one thing the High-Speed Rail Authority can do efficiently.
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