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Today's Poll!Keith calls MoDOT job cuts painful, but needed
Monday, November 28, 2011
Just under one-fourth of the state Transportation Department employees who have kept jobs, or gotten new ones, under “Bolder Five-Year Direction” restructuring plan have had to take demotions and pay cuts.
In the first round of staffing decisions under the plan, “a total of 166 employees were placed into a lower-level position,” according to Sally Oxenhandler, MoDOT’s customer relations manager. Those decisions involved 482 employees — salary grade 17 through 21-level managers — placed into positions either through appointment or following a competitive selection process.
As of last Wednesday, Oxenhandler noted, “110 of those (166) employees have accepted a lower-level position within the department (while) the remaining 56 employees have either left the department or are still working through the competitive process to secure a permanent position.”
Also, she said, “Out of this 166 employees, 17.47 percent were eligible for retirement by Dec. 1, 2011.”
She did not report how many of those eligible for retirement still were seeking to stay with MoDOT.
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Comments
RobHunterJohnson 1 year, 5 months ago
Mr Kieth, After a 600 mile tour this weekend, on 70, 64, 270, 55, 60, 25, 53, 60, 21, 72/32, 63. and 50. You need to tell them how to fixem; not reducing Mo Dots worker force? Rob
OldsMo 1 year, 5 months ago
The way the department has handled this disguised downsizing has treated loyal employees terribly and is inhumane in my opinion. The long months of wondering what their fate is going to be is cruel and much more painful and drawn out than any employee should have to endure. Many of the departments best employees have opted out of going through this "painful" treatment and found jobs else where. Mr. Keith would have you believe that they are getting rid of the fat. In some cases maybe but I know many more cases where highly skilled and respected employees have left. What MoDOT is being left with is deficiencies in high skill level areas that they will not be able to support. Those employees that remain are trying to find a way to keep going with out the knowledge that has walked out the door. This ultimately will lead to MoDOT having to post positions and or contract work out and ultimately cost the department more. More importantly any sense of a Team atmosphere has been bombed into oblivion as a more cut throat environment has taken its place destroying years worth of team building and cooperation. Its a shame what has been done.
emma 1 year, 5 months ago
An audit needs to be done of the offices, main and others. The misuse of time and finances is unbelievable. I completely agree with OldsMo, that MoDot is being left with deficiencies in employees that know what they are doing and actually do their job. Some of the employees recently hired to replace those already in their positions were given the job because of their credentials, not for the knowledge they have or the willingness to do their job. So now we will have people hired to do a job that have no clue what needs to be done, in some cases the entire office doesn't really know what they are doing. The wastefulness of state taxpayers money to repave a road now instead of doing it the first time, when the contractors were already in place fixing the rest of the road will end up costing us thousands more because of the ego of the "boss" in that particular office. It is unreal the things some of the employees of MoDot get by with, by coming in late and leaving early every day, the use of state vehicles for personal use (some drive a state vehicle back and forth from home every day). The taxpayers are paying for these people to get to their job, wouldn't we all like that privilege?! It is a crime how MoDot has treated employees, those just a few years from retirement, taking their jobs away and giving it to someone less capable. What are they supposed to do now? Is that how we treat skilled, dependable, loyal employees? I don't think so. I think something needs to be done and it should begin with an indepth investigation of the practices of the higher levels of management in ALL offices of MoDot, not just the main office. An "Undercover Boss" episode would be perfect for this department!!
dinger 1 year, 5 months ago
At least they are consistent on the incorrect information that is put out in order to protect Kevin Keith and make him look good.
Not all 17 through 21 pay grades are management as this was an arbitrary point they started at to identify management positions as there are management positions at a much lower pay grade level. As a retiree of MODOT I was at a 17 pay grade and had no management duties nor was it in my job duties. I know of six 17’s in the division where I worked that were notified their jobs were eliminated two to three months ago and as far as I know they still have not been told if they will have a job at a demotion or not. Of those six it just happened to be that three of them were eligible for retirement and of them one has retired due to the uncertainty of future employment. Of those that did keep their jobs it appeared that knowledge and talent of their job had little, if anything, to do with the selection process and it appears that whoever was the warmest and fuzziest got their job back.
They also make it sound like only higher level employees are being affected but this also is incorrect as it’s happening to all employees, including the maintenance man at the bottom of the pay scales, and many of them are now being told that it’s uncertain if they will have a job or not. I am assuming that the MODOT director and those in what we referred to as King’s Row and District Engineers are not affected by any of this.
JCLifer 1 year, 5 months ago
State government has some real problems in classification of "exempt" and 'non-exempt" employees, don't they?
dinger 1 year, 5 months ago
For some reason Mr. Keith thinks that getting rid of the local maintenance sheds that are already built, stocked, and paid for is a good thing and that it’s better spending more fuel for employees to take care of the roads. Where this will really show up is during operations in snow plowing or ice removal when a truck will have to drive at least twice as much and get less done due to the greater distances that a single shed will have to cover. What scares me is that if you live where a shed has been closed and there is a major snow or ice is your road will not be cleared or even touched and it will be nearly impossible for fire or medical to get to you. I sincerely hope this scenario does not materialize but there is a good possibility this can and will happen.
It has been hinted by Mr. Keith, when this was first announced, that after getting rid of employees and sheds that contracting out work to private companies would take up the slack and is the ‘Right thing to do’. As someone who has dealt with contracted jobs I would figure the cost of a job will double and possibly triple because of contracting. As an example: In the division where I worked a 17 average pay was around $40 per an hour (including benefits) but MODOT paid contracted employees $95 per an hour, as required by Office of Administration rules, and there were many contracted employees that worked a full 2080 hours a year, which is equal to a full time position. Of course the contracted employee didn’t get all that money as they had to be with an approved company that hired them separately and it received the $95 per an hour. So that works out to $83,200 per a year for a full time MODOT employee and $197,600 for a contracted employee. Of course that was for a technical position which is at a higher pay but I doubt that when they start to contract maintenance work which would be at a lower pay it will be different in the ratio of what is paid for a MODOT employee vs. a contracted employee.
I agree with OldsMO and Emma as they are correct in their letters.
RobHunterJohnson 1 year, 5 months ago
Thanks dinger, The prevailing rate for a Teamster is 27.35hr, fringe is 9.04, that is in St Louis county. That was the highest I found? Most Teamsters do not get 2080 hrs, or $75,691.00 I am a Pipefitter, and it is hard to find 1200hrs a year? Privatizing the snow removal, or general maitenance work is not the answer! Kieth needs to keep from privatizing our road work or we will be driving on GRAVEL. Our State workers deserve a RAISE, and a work environment where there is no fear for their jobs such as what is going on now, they will be loosing some of the states best workers if they keep this up, and MISSOURI will suffer. This started under John Ashcroft not requiring enough Gas tax back in the early 90s. Our roads have been suffering ever since. We have to pay for what we get, the other states around us do! The only place I see gas higher is Jefferson City and that is because of our Oil Families? Just drive to Fulton or Columbia? Take I 70, 3 lane Mineola Hill, BlackWater area, and replace some railroad bridges? You would be on your way to fixing some of the problems on 70? Mr Kieth, there is places to tighten up but not on the backs of your workers! Rob
JCLifer 1 year, 5 months ago
Privatizing services in state government has never been cost effective or a means of providing quality services. Every week it seems we hear of yet another scandal- a private contractor providing shoddy services or not doing the work, of payoffs, of corruption and waste. All it does is shifts the costs to another account, or hides the costs for a while.
This is not a democrat or republican issue. Both parties are guilty of using contracted services.
Like it or not, a good strong union would stop some of this shenanigans.
Sequoia 1 year, 5 months ago
Wasn't there some conflicts-of-interest issue with a MoDOT director who used to work for a company that got a bunch of bridge repair contracts from MoDOT?
Anyone interested in government waste needs to take a close look at government contracts. Many of these contracts are just back-scratching. In fact, private workers are less efficient than public workers because the private workers take more in salary. See Project on Government Oversight, "Billions of Taxpayer Dollars Wasted on Hiring Contractors," Sept. 13, 2011.
One problem is that too many politicians have a knee-jerk philisophical belief that private workers are always better than government workers. The facts, however, don't bear this out.
redenamel 1 year, 5 months ago
Complete agreement with RobHunterJohnson, OldsMo, emma, dinger and JCLifer. The trouble that I've run into is finding anyone (having the authority or clout to do something about MoDOT's management) to actually give a rip about the injustice to MoDOT's workforce and the waste of tax dollars. Months ago I notified the governor, many U.S. and Missouri legislators, many newspapers, and groups for tax justice, about these and other wrongdoings that need to be investigated. No one has bitten. My blog in the News Tribune has more information if anyone wants to find out more. It's at newstribune.com/weblogs/redenamel. If someone else can take some of that information and make it more interesting than I was able to, maybe some good can come from it.
RobHunterJohnson 1 year, 5 months ago
Graceful seen it for the last 30 years here in Central Missouri, One non union contractor took a valve apart at the capital, and let a huge amount of water run down Capital ave? This is not about Unions this is about the State taking care of business. If we let the Gracefuls of this state run it, we will be barefoot and on gravel! Rob
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