Report 2018-108 Recommendation 14 Responses

Report 2018-108: California High‑Speed Rail Authority: Its Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System's Construction (Release Date: November 2018)

Recommendation #14 To: High-Speed Rail Authority, California

To allow it to evaluate the sustainability of the high-speed rail system's construction, the Authority should, by May 2019, perform and document a review of its compliance with its existing quality controls related to ensuring the validity and completeness of contractor-reported data. The Authority should also establish a formal process to perform such reviews periodically.

6-Month Agency Response

The Authority has completed a quality assurance review of data quality control. In addition, the Authority has completed PROC-PLAN 03 Procedure for Assuring Data Quality in Environmental Management and Mitigation Application (EMMA) Sustainability Records which indicates that the Quality team will conduct periodic quality assurance audits on the implementation of the data quality process.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

The Authority provided the procedures it references in its response. The procedures require periodic internal audits of staff's implementation of applicable procedures for assuring the quality of the Authority's environmental data. The Authority also provided documentation that it conducted one such audit between February and March 2019.

60-Day Agency Response

The Authority has continued its continuous quality review of contractor submittals. The Authority has drafted a quality assurance process that details how periodic reviews of its compliance with the quality controls related to validity and completeness of contractor-reported data should be conducted. The draft is being circulated for review and comment.

Quality team resources have been requested to perform an initial quality assurance (estimated for 1st quarter 2019) and will be scheduled periodically to verify that the established controls are functioning as expected.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Partially Implemented

The Authority provided a draft policy stating that it will conduct quarterly reviews related to the validity and completeness of contractor-reported data, which will include periodic field inspection of construction equipment. As the Authority notes in its response, the results of any such reviews are still forthcoming. We will review those results as part of assessing the future implementation of this recommendation.

All Recommendations in 2018-108

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.