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Minnesota Senate

Minnesota House

of Representatives

State Capitol

75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd

St. Paul, MN 55155

Senator D. Scott Dibble651-296-4191

sen.scott.dibble@senate.mn

Representative Frank Hornste651-296-9281

rep.frank.hornstein@house.mn

July 18, 2013

Commissioner Charles A. Zelle

Minnesota Department of Transportation395 John Ireland Blvd

St. Paul, MN 55155

Dear Commissioner Zelle:

Thank you very much for your letter of June 5th, and for meeting personally with us on July 8th.

We appreciate your responsiveness to our concerns regarding the internal audit of MnDOT'sOffice of Civil Rights and its management of the Disadavantaged Business Enterprise (DBE)

program.

This memo is to memorialize our conversation and our understanding of commitments on yourpart.

They are as follows:

MnDOT will undertake a thorough process for attracting the best possible new

coordinator of the program, including an assessment of what, exactly, the positiondemands. We discussed MN DOT's recruitment of an individual with strong

administrative, public relations and political skills.

We have received the announcement ofchanges to MnDOTs organizational structure

and note that the OCR reports directly to MnDOTs chief counsel, with a dotted line

reporting relationship to you. This is part of your commitment to elevate the DBEprogram to ensure that its functions are more central to the core mission of the agency

and so that it will receive the necessary oversight, support and resources to succeed in itsresponsibilities.

We heard assurances that record keeping issues would continue to be addressed via a new

system that has been acquired that ensures that documents are not misplaced, sensitive

data is not breached, and information can be tracked easily by staff and other appropriatestakeholders.

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We raised issues about both overall and project specific goal setting procedures in theDBE program and we agreed that improvements in methodology, standardization and

training is a key priority (and that some of this is already underway).

An important point of discussion was the need for MnDOT to provide much more

detailed information about project participation rates and provide for better accounting

and reporting of those rates.

We raised issues regarding the conflict of interest between the program's monitoring and

enforcement functions and its mission to increase participation rates. However, based onyour letter of June 5th and our July 8th discussion, it remains unclear how MnDOT

intends to address the conflict of interest issue. The issue was highlighted in the MnDOT

internal audit report as important, and the Legislative Auditor has indicated he thinks it is

a valid issue that needs to be addressed by MnDOT. Therefore, we request that youcommunicate to uspreferably in writinghow you intend to address the issue.

You committed to keeping us up to date on the agencies activities and progress onmaking necessary changes and improvements to the office and its programs. We will, in

turn, share any and all information with our committee members, as we have done todate.

You agreed to meet with and consider whether any service providers external to MnDOTmay be able to bring value to this work.

You will keep the Legislative Auditor apprised of the findings of your personnel

investigation.

We agreed that given the seriousness of the issues involved and the ineffectiveness ofpast efforts to address them, a follow-up independent review of the Office of the Civil

Rights and the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program should be conducted in thefuture. If possible, it should be conducted by the Office of the Legislative Auditor but, if

that is not possible, it would be acceptable for the review to be conducted by MnDOTsOffice of Internal Audit. In the meantime, MnDOT and legislative leadership will

continue to keep informed and make use of the services, advice and expertise of the

Office of the Legislative Auditor.

We look forward to our on-going dialogue with you regarding improving the DBE program at

MnDOT, and will schedule a follow-up meeting during the 3rd quarter of this year to monitor

progress reforming the functioning of this vital program.

Sincerely,

D. Scott Dibble, Chair Frank Hornstein, Chair

Senate Transportation & Public Safety Committee House Transportation Finance Committee

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cc: Sen. Bobby Joe Champion

Jim Nobles, Legislative Auditor

Scott Peterson, MnDOT

Nick Thompson, MnDOT