AFSCME tells Senate panel TTAA hasn’t stopped outsourcing; MnDOT cites specialized work and staffing gains

Pat Benner, legislative representative with AFSCME Council 5, told the Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee on April 27 that the Taxpayers Transportation Accountability Act has had limited success in preventing outsourcing at the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

"Since 2009, MnDOT sought to outsource 1,081 projects to consultants," Benner said, and the department has "only cancelled a single project through this process," a rate he described as 0.1 percent. Benner said MnDOT would have been the lower-cost bidder about 61 percent of the time and that keeping work in-house would have saved roughly $113 million since 2009.

Benner also described staffing and vacancy patterns he said undermine the TTAA’s intent. He said funded FTEs rose from about 4,772 to 5,348 over the period he examined, but AFSCME bargaining-unit membership has stagnated, with only about 3 percent growth since 2014. He told the committee that a December 2025 data pull found 291 vacancies in AFSCME-classified positions, and that documentation for tracking vacancies was inconsistently completed.

The union spokesman criticized elements of the internal-bid analysis used to compare MnDOT to private contractors. He said TTAA reporting allows so-called additives—historically a new-hire factor and premium overtime, and most impactful, a delay-inflation factor—that can raise the apparent internal cost of performing work. "The delay inflation factor sometimes can substantially dwarf the underlying project," Benner said, arguing that such adjustments can make internal bids look expensive even when MnDOT could perform the work.

Eric Rudine, MnDOT government affairs, thanked AFSCME for its partnership and said the department looks forward to the legislative audit for more clarity. Rudine said parts of MnDOT’s work are heavily specialized—"we might have, for example, a bridge [design] that comes around once every 15 years"—and that it may not be sensible to hire full-time staff for infrequent, specialized projects.

Rudine added MnDOT has increased staffing in recent years: he said total agency staffing rose about 15 percent over roughly a decade, and that the program planning and delivery activity rose about 21 percent in the same period. He told the committee additional budgeted operations and maintenance dollars were used to keep pace with higher material costs and to invest in snow-and-ice capabilities such as brine production and application equipment.

Members pressed for clarity on whether recent increases in MnDOT spending have flowed to the kinds of frontline operations AFSCME represents. Chair (presiding) and members noted the legislature had increased base funding for operations and maintenance and asked how those appropriations were being used.

No formal action or vote was taken on the TTAA topic at the hearing. The committee recorded the presentations and said it expects the legislative auditor’s analysis this fall.

The committee’s materials include the 2025 TTAA report and related appendices; AFSCME said a copy of the union’s data requests and summaries would be provided to members.