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.