To ensure that the change orders it approves are necessary and that their costs are appropriate, the Authority should adhere to the guidance and estimates the oversight firms provide to it. If the Authority chooses to deviate from the oversight firms' recommendations, it should clearly document why it made those deviations.
Before executing its next construction contract, the Authority should establish formal prerequisites for beginning construction to prevent avoidable cost overruns and project delays. At a minimum, these prerequisites should identify specific benchmarks related to land acquisition, utility agreements and relocations, and agreements with external stakeholders, including impacted local governments and other railroad operators.
To better position itself to complete the three Central Valley projects by the December 2022 federal grant deadline, the Authority should improve its monitoring and evaluation of the oversight firms' risk assessment processes and should take steps to ensure that these processes are consistent across the three projects by May 2019.
To enable policymakers and the public to track the Authority's progress toward meeting the federal grant deadline of December 2022, the Authority should, by January 2019, begin providing quarterly updates to the Legislature detailing the progress of the three Central Valley construction projects using an earned value model that compares construction progress to the projected total completion cost and date. The Authority should base these updates on the most current estimates available.
To ensure that it is adequately prepared if it is unable to meet the federal grant deadline of December 2022, the Authority should, by May 2019, develop a contingency plan for responding to such a scenario.