McKee denies ‘hiding’ audit of R.I.’s Washington Bridge. Legislative leaders consider putting officials under oath.

Speaker Shekarchi and Senate President Lawson said they were “deeply troubled by the findings” in the audit

A crew works to demolish the remnants of the Washington Bridge’s westbound span in March 2025. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s political leaders are up in arms over a newly released forensic audit of the Washington Bridge on Interstate 195 west, calling it an indictment of decades of state neglect, and raising fresh questions about accountability inside Governor Dan McKee’s administration.

The 64-page report, prepared by Virginia-based Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates in April 2024 and quietly released on the attorney general’s website on Friday night, details decades of missteps, shoddy work, botched projects, and ignored warnings that left one of Rhode Island’s busiest bridges in perilous condition long before it was abruptly closed to traffic in December 2023. At the time of the shutdown, an engineer working on the bridge discovered the “critical failure” of tie-down rods.

Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate President Valarie J. Lawson said they were “deeply troubled by the findings” in the audit, and said lawmakers intend to conduct an oversight hearing, “where all options remain on the table such as putting state officials, including [Transportation] Director Peter Alviti under oath.”

McKee, who vowed a “day of reckoning” but later insisted that accountability lay with private contractors rather than state officials, is facing renewed criticism over his administration’s year-and-a-half delay in releasing the audit.

The report is dated April 5, 2024, just three days after McKee’s office told the Globe the investigation was going to take longer than expected because of the need to retrieve “additional archival documents throughout the bridge’s 50-year history.”

Monthly reports on the bridge crisis since then, including this month, have claimed the forensic analysis is “ongoing.”

Asked to explain Monday, McKee said he was “instructed” by lawyers not to release the report, as it could influence the state’s lawsuit against contractors who have worked on the bridge.

“I commissioned the report,” McKee told reporters Monday at an unrelated event. “Nobody was hiding the report. That report led to a lawsuit." (While the report is marked “draft,” McKee said he believes the firm’s work is complete.)

Helena Foulkes, who is challenging McKee in next year’s Democratic primary, said the governor was failing. She repeated her calls for Transportation Director Peter Alviti to be fired, for the General Assembly to hold oversight hearings when lawmakers return to session in January, and for there to be an independent investigation.

“At the very least, Rhode Islanders deserve honesty and transparency about what actually happened,” said Foulkes. “McKee should immediately explain why the forensic audit was not released, and provide clear answers to the decisions and actions of his administration.”

Joe Powers, the Rhode Island Republican Party chairman, said the forensic analysis confirmed what many Rhode Islanders feared: “This disaster was decades in the making.”

“Rhode Islanders have been lied to, and the sad truth is that no one is surprised by what this report reveals,” said Powers. “This wasn’t an accident. It was negligence.”

The audit criticizes the Rhode Island Department of Transportation for poor coordination, and leaving major repairs incomplete. State transportation officials have not commented publicly since its release.

“Many of the issues highlighted in this report show that program managers, bridge inspectors, and designers should have and could have been aware of problems that were developing,” the report said.

The westbound side of the Washington Bridge will be closed for at least three more years, and is expected to be rebuilt by November 2028. The new bridge could cost as much as $427 million, for a total cost of $570 million including the demolition of the old bridge and emergency repairs.

The report paints a damning portrait of the two major rehabilitation efforts in the last three decades. A 1990s rehab revealed deficiencies in nearly half of the bridge’s beams. The more recent rehabilitation, from 2016 to 2019, appeared to be “haphazard” auditors found, and “plagued by poor coordination and very little emphasis on progressing the work.”

“Inspection photos showed persistent incomplete patch repairs with poor preparation and opened areas remaining exposed for extended periods,” the report said.

Scaffolding sat for years, collecting debris and bird feces. Many of the bridge’s vulnerable points were not properly fixed. At one point during that rehabilitation, RIDOT canceled the construction contract while most of the repairs were left incomplete. A department spokesperson did not immediately respond to the Globe’s request for comment on the report.

“Although the statewide program manager may choose to delegate some or all functions to other bridge inspection personnel, the statewide program manager retains all responsibility for bridge inspection operations for which he or she was assigned,” the authors of the report concluded.

While the McKee administration was “entirely justified” in closing the westbound bridge to traffic to protect public safety, the report said, the audit concludes the failures should have been foreseen.

McKee repeatedly declined to comment Monday on any accountability within the Department of Transportation, including whether any changes are needed in its management.

“The legal process will run its course and accountability will be assigned based on that legal lawsuit that’s going on right now,” McKee said. “Anybody whose been involved in legal matters knows I’m kind of handcuffed.”

The fallout is expected to impact next year’s gubernatorial race, and is widely considered to be a defining issue of McKee’s reelection effort. The bridge’s closure has snarled commutes for thousands, and cost businesses revenue.

Tim Rondeau, a spokesman for Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office is handling the state’s lawsuit against 13 companies that have done work on the bridge over the years, said Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, the firm that authored the report, produced the audit as part of discovery, and it was handed over to the defendants in the case along with 22,000 pages of documents.

Michael C. Brown, the firm’s associate principal, did not immediately respond to the Globe’s request for comment.

“It has never been our intention, nor do court rules anticipate, releasing discovery materials publicly prior to trial,” said Rondeau. On Friday, parts of the report were leaked on social media, prompting the office to post the report on its website, said Rondeau.

“I wonder what other important lessons we can learn from the 22,353 pages the state produced to opposing counsel on April 1, but we are not allowed to see,” wrote State Senator Sam Zurier, a Providence Democrat who has long called for transparency as the state pursues its bridge lawsuit, in a letter to his constituents over the weekend. “We should not have to wait until the conclusion of the lawsuit (which may still be years away) to find out.”