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Highways
chief challenges
critical audit

Pericles Manthos says the
handling of the Waimea rockslide
demonstrates the efficiency
of his team

Waimea bypass spared
from high waves so far

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

The State Highways Administrator, Pericles Manthos, cited the handling of the Waimea Falls rockslide to counter a state auditor's scathing report that his agency is inefficient and poorly managed.

Manthos said a management audit by auditor Marion Higa placed too much emphasis on the cost-efficiency of the Highways Division.

"Sometimes spending the money is not the same issue as providing safe and efficient transportation," Manthos said.

For instance, he said, the audit released yesterday unfairly criticizes the agency for spending $1 million in contract change-overs last year.

"If we're in the middle of a project and see something that needs to be fixed, we're going to fix it then rather than close the road six months later because that interferes with our primary mission, which is safety and efficiency of the traveling public," Manthos said.

In addition, the agency has been improving on the timetable of its projects, he said, noting that the division put out $70 million of its $200 million construction budget during the first quarter of the fiscal year.

That efficiency, he said, helped free engineers and planners to find short-term and long-term solutions to deal with the Waimea Bay rock fall that cut off Kamehameha Highway and the North Shore.

"If we were to follow the audit to handle Waimea bypass, it would've been a couple years before we would have done anything," Manthos said.

Another criticism in the audit was that the division failed to follow the basic standards of highway maintenance, planning and management of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Manthos said the association's manual is extensive and complex, "and it's very easy to find individual fault with individual pieces." The audit should have compared his division's performance with that of other states. "There are many areas (in) which we excel."

Higa also noted that the division had $2.4 million in overtime in fiscal 1998 and accused the agency of allowing "gross abuse and unnecessary personnel costs."

Manthos responded that overtime is less than 5 percent of his total salary cost, "and that's very small compared to the tort claims we generate if we don't respond quickly."

The audit said that employees were observed playing computer games, napping and reading novels during work hours.

"We don't tolerate that," Manthos said, noting that he has terminated five employees since he took over as division chief in January 1998.

Manthos said he found the report, in general, to be lacking in specifics. "We had no way to factually refute, or even talk on the same plane because we don't know what projects they looked at," he said.

Two civil engineering professors from the University of Hawaii at Manoa say the division is running as well as can be expected.

C.S. Papacostas, a UH civil engineering professor since 1973, said the agency's budget doesn't appear to be keeping pace with the increasing inventory of state highways over the years.

Professor Panos Prevedouros said generally, he's found the Highways Division "quite resourceful and responsive."