A few years ago, I began the long journey of reading Robert Jordan’s fantasy epic, The Wheel of Time. While it remains one of the most rewarding reading experiences of my life, I don’t recommend it to anyone. It stands at 14 books long, several of which are more concerned with the minutiae of Jordan’s fantasy world than the overarching plot itself. However, this extraneous detail does lend itself to unique insight into the far-flung effects of the central conflict in the series.
The saga pits a young man known as The Dragon (bear with me here) against a malevolent force known as the Dark One – pretty standard fantasy fare. What’s interesting is the relationship of each character to the world itself: “The land is one with the Dragon, and he is one with the land,” reads the ancient prophecy. As the Dragon prevails, flowers bloom, and harvests are bountiful; as he falters, weevils infest the crops, and previously fertile fields lie barren.
The Dragon reminds me of the Iowa Department of Transportation. Not where you thought I was going with that, was it? But it’s true – Iowa DOT represents a centralized figure, deeply connected to the statewide environment.
Let’s take a step away from fantasy and into our reality. I know, it’s a bummer for me too. At a recent ARTBA conference in Dallas, a representative from the Colorado DOT stated that the majority of federal funding that flows through the state is managed at the local level. This is certainly not unique to Colorado, as the following statistics back up:
- In Georgia, GDOT maintains about 16% of the state’s roadways. The remaining 84% is the responsibility of counties and cities.
- In New Jersey, state-managed roadways account for only 7% of the road mileage, with county and municipal roads comprising the remaining 93%.
- In California, these numbers are roughly 9% and 91%, respectively.
Of course, every state is different – West Virginia DOT, for example, directly manages 88% of its roads – but this trend is common among most states. And that’s just looking at roads, not even taking other federally-funded public works projects into account.
But despite the fact that locals are managing these projects and reporting on the funding, the burden of federal compliance ultimately falls on the state DOT. It is the responsibility of the state DOT to collaborate closely with locals to ensure that projects are going smoothly and compliance requirements are being met.
For some states, this is a challenging process, rife with inconsistent documentation, missing data, and a lack of visibility into what is happening at the local level. And if a state DOT fails to properly report on the use of federal funding throughout the state, it risks the loss of future federal funding. If the Dark One existed in our world, his presence in these states might look like an abundance of potholes, structurally deficient bridges, and poor drainage systems.
But Iowa? Iowa is like the Dragon – closely connected to locals throughout the state, so that the land public works projects can flourish. We will get into how exactly they accomplished this feat below, but the logline is simple: they mandated the use of one construction management software program across all counties and cities to standardize documentation and reporting on every locally-managed project.
Iowa’s Challenges with Documentation & Standardization
Iowa DOT has always had a strong relationship with its locals, thanks in part to the stewardship of Niki Stinn and Derek Peck, two leaders in the agency’s Local Systems Bureau. But prior to pursuing standardization through technology, the agency ran into issues with consistency.
“Local agencies used their own field book setup… [like] Excel sheets for documenting things like air and slump results for concrete. People used them in little different ways. The setup of field books was a lot different across agencies, so we just didn’t really have a super consistent format,” Stinn said.
On the locals’ side, many agencies were handwriting everything related to their projects, which also led to issues with consistency, as Kevin Coon, City Engineer for Muscatine, Iowa, shares:
“Every inspector did it slightly differently, which made going back through projects really tedious on our end. You didn’t know how someone actually kept their notes. It became really difficult on our end with turnover. We would lose inspectors and get new inspectors in, then we wouldn’t be able to find information,” he said.
Why is it so important to standardize project documentation across the state? Consider the scope of Iowa’s Local Systems Bureau:
- 105,000 miles of city and county roadway
- 20,000 bridges
- $250 – $350M annually in funding
- 500-600 projects in active construction at any one time
This administrative burden makes it crucial for the state DOT to work closely with locals to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Add in the need to deal with inconsistent documentation, reporting, and compliance issues, and you can see how time-consuming something like consolidating handwritten inspection reports can be.
Adopting Appia® and Doc Express® to Centralize Data, Increase Efficiency, and Standardize Statewide
Iowa DOT saw the need for a more unified approach. The agency decided to mandate the use of Appia, a digital platform for construction administration and inspection, to ensure standardization of documentation and compliance statewide. The DOT also uses Doc Express, a paperless contracting platform, to handle all project documentation paperlessly and push pay applications from Appia, to Doc Express, to the state’s financial system.
Tangible Benefits for Locals and the DOT
Real-time Visibility: Project engineers no longer have to be on-site to know what is happening. They can review inspector entries daily, respond to contractor questions faster, and support field staff remotely.
“I can look in on stuff in real time… as my field staff is out there working on projects. I can check in with them virtually anytime I need to, right from my desk. I know exactly what’s going on in a project, I can answer contractor questions a lot more efficiently. Because I have the information basically at my fingertips,” said Ed Bartels, Assistant County Engineer for Johnson County.
Standardized Pay Applications: Finance staff no longer have to interpret different formats. Every voucher looks the same, streamlining review and reimbursement.
“Every project seemed to have a different style of payout… With all of our projects being on Appia now, every single payout looks the same. It goes to finance, who are not used to working in construction. They can read the payouts because they’re the same ones they get every single week,” said Kevin Coon.
Improved Collaboration: DOT reviewers gained the ability to spot discrepancies early, resolve issues during the project, and avoid messy closeouts.
“We’re overseeing locals throughout the state… They might have a standardized process, but take all that together, we want to get that in-house, consistent and standardized — so we’re really just looking to improve documentation, increase efficiencies by reviewing projects,” Peck said.
Efficiency Gains: Automated pay processes replaced mailing vouchers and manual entry, while joint jurisdiction projects became easier to manage with everyone working from the same dataset.
“Now we have the auto-pay process… once our local agencies approve something, fully sign it in Doc Express, and then approve it in Appia. It goes through an integration and API to our finance system, just like that. So within a minute, we’ve got the payment, and it’s all entered without any mistakes,” Stinn said.
What began as a collection of disconnected processes has transformed into a standardized, collaborative system across Iowa. For local agencies, it means less paperwork and clearer expectations. For the DOT, it means stronger oversight, faster payments, and reliable compliance with federal requirements.
“In 6 years, we went from snail mail and sticky notes to instantaneous payments without errors; it’s pretty cool,” Stinn said.
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Nate Binder
Digital Marketing Manager
A proud graduate of Florida State University, Nate works with subject matter experts and sales professionals to produce targeted marketing collateral.