Idaho Transportation Department director resigns
Embattled Idaho Transportation Department Director Dave Ekern announced his retirement Thursday, and Gov. Jim Risch quickly named an interim director.
Risch appointed longtime director Dwight Bower, who headed the state’s second-largest agency from 1993 to 2003, to oversee the department while the state Board of Transportation conducts a search for a new director.
Ekern’s resignation comes in the wake of an independent report criticizing communication and morale within the department, which manages an annual $700 million in road spending and is in the early stages of planning the $1.2 billion “Connecting Idaho” highway repair project.
On Thursday morning, Ekern submitted a resignation letter to the seven-member board, chaired by recent Risch appointee Frank Bruneel, a former state lawmaker.
“My direction to Dwight is the same as I gave to Frank: move the department forward,” Risch said.
Earlier this month, an Idaho Department of Transportation study reported that under Ekern, staffers harbored an “unusual amount of fear” over the agency’s changing role.
So far, the department has awarded two contracts worth $43 million and conducted its own work for the design phase of the first six projects under “Connecting Idaho,” the state’s largest infrastructure overhaul in decades.
The plan departs from Idaho’s pay-as-you-go method of financing roads projects, instead selling bonds to launch road projects fast enough to avoid inflation.
Transportation officials will pitch the first shovel on the first project Friday on U.S. Highway 30 in the eastern Idaho town of Lava Hot Springs, Risch said.
The Republican governor declined to speculate whether the scathing internal study contributed to Ekern’s departure. There was no answer at Ekern’s home telephone on Thursday afternoon.
The 16-page study, first obtained by the Associated Press through an open records request, included excerpts from 60 department employees interviewed by former transportation chief Darrell Manning.
The report also found that department leaders failed to communicate effectively with the state board. Many of the department’s 1,800 employees reported that they received “too little positive feedback” from Ekern and transportation brass.
“Under Ekern, the department was asked to make changes to the organization,” said Jeff Stratten, transportation spokesman. “Changes to organization can be troubling and disconcerting.”
In his resignation letter, Ekern said he is leaving to pursue “two potentially significant career opportunities.” He said it would be unwise to angle for new work while he remained state employee.
Ekern leaves behind a $130,000 annual salary. He will remain on the state payroll until Aug. 25, exhausting his remaining paid vacation time, Stratten said.
Bower, who led the agency for nine years prior to Ekern’s appointment, will take over on Sept. 5.
Since leaving the department, Bower has worked as a top executive in Boise’s branch office of the Chicago-based transportation engineering firm HW Lochner, Inc.
The consulting company has several active contracts with Idaho for highway engineering design. Bower was not immediately available for comment.
The department’s process for procuring contracts has sturdy mechanisms in place to prevent conflict of interest, Stratten said.
“Mr. Bower has severed his relationship with HW Lochner,” he said. “The director is not involved in the selection of design engineering firms.”
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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