Watch the cheerful logic-deying way in which this MODOT spokeswoman explains how cutting employees and facilities is going to help the state take better care of our roads. I still have a hard time understanding why our leaders are so thrilled every time they eliminate state jobs. How putting thousands on the unemployment rolls helps our economy is something I have never been able to fathom.
3 comments:
Randy, this Spokesperson's joy in announcing better service thru job cuts is kinda like what happened in Branson several years ago.
Silver Dollar City has lobbied John Ashcroft, then Governor of Missouri, for a private highway from Hwy 65 to Silver Dollar City. Only catch was it was to be built with State Highway Dollars.
I attended a hearing in Jefferson City before the Transportation Committee regarding this white elephant project.
The Mayor and several other city fathers had already expounded on the need for this bypass in a previous private session. The Mayor was elated that the Commission was going to build this road and by pass his Hwy 76 Strip.
Our of the people in our group said I never saw anyone so happy about building a bypass around our town and taking the people off the street. We want them to pass by our building, but the campaign dollars had been put in the right place, and the rest is history.
This damn road should be the first road in Missouri to be made a toll road. Maybe it would at least generate $50 to $100 a day in tolls.
Randy, this is the latest salvo on the regular workers at MoDOT: Now that the cuts are underway, MoDOT's top dogs revealed that 237 Maintenance Supervisors will be reduced to 35. That means 202 of them will be demoted to Crew Leaders or lower, and then the domino effect will go on down from there. Many of the lowest paid "boots on the ground" workers will get pay cuts. Until last week, they were led to believe their jobs were the most secure. Meanwhile, the upper echelon making $90,000 to $160,000 will still have their jobs, regardless of how useless the jobs are (for example Assistant Customer Relations Director and the newly created Assistant Chief Engineer) and regardless that they were responsible for mortgaging MoDOT's future with billions of dollars of debt.
Freddy has given a correct version of what "really" is happening with MoDOT behind closed doors. They again have told the public a vague plan with no input from the citizens or our elected officials. This plan did not come to play overnight. My question is how can a government agency produce such drastic plans over the course of 2 years behind closed doors. Everyone forgets to mention we are in our second year of this 5 year plan and only recently has MoDOT management and the commision released details of what they have been working on in the past year or two. This is evident with the speed of implimentation of the plan. Government does not naturally work so fast with such drastic changes.(at least without discussion with our elected officials and the public) Sure they had public meetings recently with little notification and then released statements that the public agreed with their plan. All meetings with the exception of the most impacted areas of the state only had a handfull in attendace. (this was by design)Everyone I had talked to did not know there were such meetings until the media had reported on them.
The reality is in line with Freddy's comments. The management structure has become more complex with created positions at the senior level with more cuts and demotions at the lower level. Why are they creating senior management positions when they claim to be cutting back? Why would a district have 3 or 4 assistant engineers (up from 1) with and assistant to the assistant engineer? Why is MoDOT still focused on spending money for construction projects in St Louis and Kansas City yet claim they do not have enough funds to maintaing the current system? Why does the commission seem to be freinds of management and not asking tough questions and demanding performance from MoDOT senior management and firing those that need to be? And finally why has MoDOT retained, created new positions and promoted the same senior management that was in charge the last 10 years and created the problems that we are facing? Shouldn't they be the first to go? The reality is they will stay, the folks that actually work on the road will be demoted,fired,quit or retire and the rest is history once management gets every ounce of internal maintenance work under contract at an extremly high cost to the taxpayer with less direct service...(this is currently underway at this time) My hat is off to the employees working on our roads, plowing snow and responding to emergencies!They will be the ones to take the hardest hit from all of this while their senior management recieves promtions and higher salaries.
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