WisDOT MAPSS - Accountability - On-budget Performance - The continuous effort to use public dollars in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
On-budget Performance - The continuous effort to use public dollars in the most efficient and cost-effective way.Finishing highway projects on budget helps keep us accountable for the use of limited public funds and allows us to schedule future projects more effectively. Our goal is to keep project cost overruns at 3% or less of the original contract amount (a lower number is better).
The department aims to have the final project cost as close as possible to the amount that was originally contracted when the project was let out for bid. While managing our budget is important, WisDOT’s top priority is delivering a quality project. Therefore, project costs may increase due to an issue recognized in the field.
A variety of factors can come into play including weather, staging needs, contractor readiness and competition for the work. Actual costs are affected by the quality and completeness of project designs, new findings or changes in field conditions, weather condition and contract oversight. Additional factors may be late additions to project scope due to safety conditions, changes in customer expectations and local non-participating requests during construction. Not all changes identified in the field are negative. Cost Reduction Incentives (CRI) are a primary example of how contractors and department staff work together in the construction phase to identify efficiencies that create positive financial impacts.
WisDOT project staff work diligently to manage costs and schedules while continuously troubleshooting and developing best practices to deliver work more efficiently and effectively. To control overall program costs, the department emphasizes disciplined management of change orders. Management is addressing unplanned change in scope resulting from requests for additional work, primarily from adjacent projects, as well as from increased contractor change orders. Staff continue to follow a formal change management process, with change orders exceeding $25,000 reviewed and discussed with regional management during monthly meetings.