November 6, 2007
Road Details cost state $44m
Records show police took big bite of Dig
By Casey Ross, Boston Globe
Facing a $1-billion-a-year funding deficit, state transportation agencies, including the Mass Pike, MassPort and the MBTA, dished out more than $44 million for police details in 2006, including some $103,000 to cops for a single week of directing Big Dig traffic, a Herald review found.
Payroll records produced by the state’s major transportation agencies also show that the amount paid to cops on details by the Massachusetts Highway Department alone has doubled to $22.4 million, from just $11.6 million in 2000.
“It’s beyond comprehension why we can’t find another way to do this,” said Stephen Silveira, chairman of a special state transportation commission. “It makes no sense, and it’s no wonder it drives (taxpayers) so crazy.”
Massachusetts is the only state in the nation that uses police to direct traffic at construction sites, with most others relying on cheaper civilian flaggers for some or all of that work. The policy in the Bay State has led to exorbitant costs for road construction. In some cases, the payouts are staggering.
The Big Dig alone soaked up nearly $10 million for details in 2006, with cops making $37-an-hour for regular shifts and $55-an-hour for overtime, according to Mass Pike payroll records. In mid-January, the Turnpike Authority paid state police officers more than $103,000 for a week’s worth of details, including $49,000 to direct traffic at a single work site.
Between 1998 and 2006, police officers were paid more than $60.3 million for directing traffic on the $15 billion project.
The ever-rising costs have caused Gov. Deval Patrick to consider curtailing the use of police at construction sites and employing civilian flaggers.
But previous efforts to control police detail pay have collapsed in the State House, and union officials say there is no reason to revisit the controversial issue.
“We’ve been through this several times, talking about the costs of police vs. civilian flaggers, but there really are no savings,” said John Coflesky, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts. “It’s so close in dollar amount it’s almost negligible.”
Coflesky said the state would have to hire construction laborers at prevailing wage rates to direct traffic at the work sites, leaving little room to cut costs.
But Silveira and lawmakers who have worked on the issue say the state could provide its own training and hire flaggers outside of construction unions, a move they say could cut the costs by one-third or more.
“There is the potential for huge savings in some areas where you just don’t need details,” said James Jajuga, a former state senator and state trooper who proposed curtailing the use of details in 1995.
Using current pay rates and adding inflation, costs for police details could cost the state more than $1.1 billion over the next 20 years. But transportation officials insist costs will automatically go down because the Big Dig is completed.
November 2, 2007
Patrick eyes axing trooper details for road work
By Michele McPhee, Boston Herald
Gov. Deval Patrick said yesterday he would consider wiping out costly state police details on state roadways and replacing them with flaggers as a way to cut the state’s bloated budget.
“It is a reflection of our willingness to think in fresh ways. We owe it to the public to squeeze out all the inefficiencies, and that means everything has got to be on the table,” Patrick said on his monthly show, “Ask the Governor,” on 96.9 WTKK-FM.
Patrick said it’s unclear if he can make changes simply by issuing an executive order, although he does have oversight of the state Highway Department and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, both of which use state police at work sites.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority said it spent $3.4 million on police details in fiscal 2006, the most recent figure available. Highway Department officials said it didn’t have immediate statistics on its police detail costs.
Former Gov. William Weld also threatened to wipe out state police details, but was met with strong resistance from uniformed officers.
“It just means less cops on the street,” said Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association President Tom Nee, whose members would not be affected by Patrick’s idea.
“We welcome him reviewing the facts. We believe he will arrive at the same conclusions his predecessors did: It is a greater value to the traveling public to have police officers and troopers on the roadway than flag men.”
A blue-ribbon commission recently recommended that police details be slashed. It also called for a hike in the gas tax to pay for what it estimated are $19 billion in road and bridge repairs over the next 20 years.
“The governor’s top concern is public safety,” his spokesman, Kyle Sullivan, said last night. “Details are not an insignificant cost to our transportation agencies. That is one of the areas that will be reviewed.”