AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
Rail board OK’d settlement change order of up to $537.3M for Dragados Flatiron company.Change order ties payment to performance to help accelerate Central Valley track‑laying.Dragados Flatiron had 597 prior change orders totaling $2.32B; GOP lawmakers seek audit.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has authorized a settlement in a contract dispute that could send another $537.3 million to the company that’s building out 65 miles of the train system in the Central Valley.
The agency’s board announced at its last meeting that it voted 7-0 in closed session to allow CEO Ian Choudri to negotiate and finalize an “appropriate settlement change order” of up to $537.3 million with Dragados Flatiron Joint Venture.
Change orders deal with work that is added or removed from an original contract and can change a contract’s cost and a project’s completion date. They can also be especially common in large construction projects, the rail authority says on its website.
But this change order, which the rail authority says has not been finalized, could end up being more than double the amount of the largest change order to date on high-speed rail work performed by Dragados Flatiron in the Central Valley.
The rail authority in 2015 awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Dragados Flatiron for the design and construction of what it calls Construction Packages 2-3, which include work from Fresno County to the Tulare-Kern county line. Since then, the agency has approved 597 change orders — not including the one recently authorized — totaling $2.32 billion for work performed by the company, according to the agency’s data posted online. The largest of those change orders was worth $242 million.
The rail authority has been in a contract dispute with Dragados Flatiron and said this settlement change order “resolved outstanding claims.” The agency added that the change order ties payment to Dragados Flatiron’s performance and “completing the work necessary to accelerate track-laying this year.”
Dragados Flatiron declined to comment for this story.
The high-speed rail project has become controversial since California voters in 2008 approved $9.95 billion in bonds for a train that would connect the state’s major metro areas at a total cost of about $45 billion. Today, after years of delays and cost increases, the focus is first on completing a 171-mile Merced-to-Bakersfield segment that the rail authority estimates will cost at least $36.75 billion.
default COURTESY OF CA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY CA High-Speed Rail has had 1,500+ change orders, GOP wants more audits
High-speed rail’s history and volume of change orders since the project began — more than 1,500 totaling several billion dollars — has drawn criticism from the Trump administration, which audited the project last year before pulling $4 billion of federal money.
Republican state legislators, including Hanford Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo, are now renewing calls for a state audit of the project.
“The project has been plagued by mismanagement, delays, cost overruns, and broken promises,” Macedo wrote Feb. 12 in a letter to California’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
But the rail authority has said jurisdictional weaknesses have historically been at the root of its change order problem. The agency has floated state legislation that would make it easier for it to get its local construction permits, move utilities and designate courts that would handle eminent domain cases more quickly.
“Addressing these challenges through regulatory and policy improvements will help prevent future change orders,” the rail authority said in a Friday statement to The Bee.
Dragados Flatiron’s high-speed rail change orders
According to the rail authority’s data, the most expensive of the 597 change orders it has awarded to Dragados Flatiron in the past — a $242 million change order approved in October 2022 — had to do with the Hanford Viaduct, a type of bridge that supports elevated tracks.
The data show the change order falls into the category of “Authority directed scope changes” and says it was necessary to “to fully and completely compensate (Dragados Flatiron), and its subcontractors, for the construction work necessary for the Hanford Viaduct Superstructure and all associated civil work.”
Of the company’s 597 change orders, 221 were listed in the category of “changes to plans and specifications.” More than 100 were related to a “third party,” 47 were related to environmental issues and 18 were related to right-of-way issues.
This story was originally published February 21, 2026 at 8:30 AM.
Related Stories from Fresno Bee
The Fresno Bee
Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.