NASHTU Notes
A recent article in the Detroit Free Press highlights the excessive outsourcing of transportation work and its negative impact on state staffing levels. Representatives from SEIU 517M, a NASHTU affiliate, are heavily quoted in the article.
SEIU 517M represents about 1,000 engineers and technicians across Michigan state departments and agencies. At the Michigan Department of Transportation, approximately 350 employees are represented by SEIU 517M, down from 416 in 2015. That is a 16% decrease.
SEIU 517M officials say their numbers in state government have continued to shrink while work is outsourced at a higher cost. George Heath, an MDOT inspector, says that outsourcing not only costs more, but threatens public oversight of quality control on transportation projects. “It’s not privatization, it’s profitization,” Heath is quoted in the article.
Both Heath and Kevin Karpinski, a senior labor relations specialist with SEIU 517M, criticized Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s approach as short-sighted.
“She not been receptive to any kind of major overhaul,” Karpinski is quoted in the article. He goes on to say that the state could have gotten much more bang for its buck under Whitmer’s 2020 $3.5 billion road bonding plan if more of the design and inspection work was performed using in-house staff.
The article quotes legislative audits in Utah and Ohio that found outsourcing costs around three times as much as state staff. The Ohio report also found that the state could save $21 million a year by performing construction inspection services in-house.
Now, as that five-year plan winds down and Governor Whitmer is calling for a new long-term road funding plan as part of the 2026 fiscal year budget, both Karpinski and Heath are worried that Michigan has let its number of state staff dwindle down to a point where costly outsourcing is unavoidable because the state doesn’t have enough staff to perform the work.
To shore up state staffing, MDOT and SEIU 517M worked extensively together to develop an apprenticeship program. MDOT, however, recently pulled the plug on the program in favor of introducing an engineering assistant position, as an entry-level training ground for future transportation technicians.
To read the full article in the Detroit Free Press, click here. The article is behind a paywall, but you may be able to access it through apple news or another news service.
Among the deluge of actions and executive orders signed last week, Trump directed government agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 [IRA]… or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act [IIJA].” The two laws have directed billions of federal dollars to states and local governments for a range of projects, including highway expansions, electric vehicle infrastructure, water system upgrades, and investments in manufacturing.
According to an article in Governing Magazine, it’s unclear what the immediate impact of the executive order will be, given that the spending has been approved by Congress. Legal precedent holds that the president cannot block approved congressional spending. But even a slowdown in federal payouts for planned infrastructure projects could have ramifications for state and local budgets.
“The safe move [for agency administrators] is to be cautious here and listen to the letter of the executive order,” Adie Tomer, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, was quoted as saying in the article. “There is reason to expect that many states and localities, irrespective of their cash reserves and risk tolerance, are going to stop projects or halt them temporarily. And that could have real costs.”
Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was also referenced in the article. While the language of the executive order appears to apply to all programs in the IIJA, which includes the vast majority of highway funding allocated to states. Tymon believes, based on conversations that AASHTO has had with both agency and Trump officials, the order is targeted at a small subset of programs, namely those aimed at promoting electric vehicles.
Read the full article in Governing Magazine here.
With Great Sadness, NASHTU Announces the Passing of Mary J. Richards
Mary J. Richards, one of the union leaders that was instrumental in the creation of NASHTU, passed away on September 2, 2024.
Known affectionately as “Mary, Mother of NASHTU,” Mary was there at the very beginning of NASHTU. In the summer of 1999, as president of the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists (MOSES), Mary came to Chicago to meet with representatives from other public sector transportation employee unions from every part of the country. By the time they left, they had created a coalition and committed to each other to fight wasteful outsourcing, protect workers on the job, and advocate for the safe and cost-effective delivery of projects for taxpayers.
Out of that first meeting, NASHTU has grown to represent 38 unions in 20 states and Washington, D.C., representing hundreds of thousands of department of transportation employees nationwide. Mary was a vocal and constant presence at the annual NASHTU conferences in Washington D.C., including the latest NASHTU conference in June 2024.
Mary had a 20-year career in public service, working for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) in the Wetland & Waterways Section Chief, Right-to-Know Division. She served as an Environmental Analyst, Section Chief, and Project Manager for various MassDEP programs.
During her tenure at MassDEP, Mary became active in MOSES, first as a union member and eventually rising through the leadership ranks to become the first woman president of the organization. MOSES represents 4,000 professional and technical state employees working in public safety, transportation, environmental protection, public health, forensic science, occupational health and safety, and wage enforcement.
Mary was a trailblazer, a visionary, and a fighter for working families. She will be deeply missed.
To read Mary’s obituary – including the option of sending flowers in her memory – please click here.
A team of academic researchers found that the U.S. overspends for highway infrastructure and identified understaffed DOTs and an overreliance on consultants as the primary reasons for higher costs. Their report was summarized in a recent article in Construction Dive, an industry publication.
According to the report, Procurement and Infrastructure Costs, state and local governments expended $266 billion on highways alone in 2022, and on a per-project basis, that spending is over three times as high as other upper- and middle-income countries. In exploring why the costs are higher, three researchers – Zachary Liscow of Yale University, Will Nober of Columbia University, and Cailin Slattery of the University of California, Berkeley – surveyed infrastructure procurement practices, talked to state DOT employees and construction companies, and analyzed project-level data across the country.
The report concludes that better staffed DOTs lead to lower overall costs for transportation infrastructure. Unfortunately, the “striking decrease in state DOT employment over the last 20 years, especially in the wake of the Great Recession,” has caused DOTs to have to do more with less and rely on overpriced consultants, which has led to higher costs to build highway infrastructure.
Specifically, the researchers found a one standard deviation increase in consultant costs is associated with an almost 20%, or $70,000, increase in cost per lane-mile. States with higher DOT employment per capita have lower infrastructure costs. For example, a one standard deviation increase in DOT employment per capita is correlated with 16% lower costs.
To read the article in Construction Dive, click here.
To download and read the full report, Procurement and Infrastructure Costs, click here.
Baltimore Bridge Collapse Could Wipe Out Federal Emergency Funds
The Washington Post is reporting that Maryland could jump ahead of states that have waited for more than a decade for emergency highway money as the federal government commits to providing full funding to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge after it collapsed on March 26 in Baltimore.
The bridge collapsed after it was struck by a massive cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore. The bridge spanned the lower Patapsco River and was one of three crossings over the Baltimore Harbor. It carried approximately 11.5 million vehicles annually.
The Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief fund, which reimburses states to rebuild or repair highways after disasters, has a $2.1 billion backlog of projects and only $89 million on hand.
The fund does not provide funding on a first come, first serve basis, which leaves some states waiting years to be reimbursed. According to the article, the Baltimore bridge could be moved to the top of the list and wipe out all available funding, which in turn would put pressure on Congress to act quickly to refill the fund’s coffers.
The article includes quotes from Members of Congress discussing the need to act quickly to add more funds so that their states can continue to access emergency reimbursement should the bridge collapse wipe out the funding.
“We also have a responsibility to support every other community that has been devastated by a disaster because we are all in this together. No state or county, big or small, red or blue, wealthy or not, can shoulder the burden alone,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “When a disaster is so big, so catastrophic for any one state or locality to handle, it falls on the federal government to step up and help.”
Read the full Washington Post article here.
Join us at the 2024 NASHTU Conference – Register Today!
The 24th Annual NASHTU Conference will be held June 3 to 5, 2024 at the Hilton Capitol Hill Hotel in Washington D.C. To register for the 2024 NASHTU Conference, click here.
The NASHTU Conference provides an important opportunity for transportation unions to come together and strategize about how best to serve our members and deliver safe, cost-effective transportation projects for taxpayers.
The conference is also a chance to hear from some of the preeminent transportation leaders in Washington. Past conferences included the congressional leaders of both Senate and House committees with jurisdiction over transportation and infrastructure and key transportation and labor officials from AASHTO, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, FHWA, Center for American Progress, American Highway Users Alliance, Economic Policy Institute, and many other transportation stakeholder organizations.
NASHTU conference attendees will be able to meet face-to-face with their state’s Congressional Representatives and Senators during the lobbying portion of the conference, reserved for the afternoon of Tuesday, June 4. The
NASHTU Conference will also feature networking opportunities, including a Group Dinner where conference attendees can get to know union representatives from other states, and a Congressional Reception where they can mingle with Members of Congress and Congressional staff.
Again, to register for the conference, please visit our conference webpage.
Registration Now Open for the 24th Annual NASHTU Conference – Register Today!
The 24th Annual NASHTU Conference will be held June 3 through 5, 2024 at the Hilton Capitol Hill Hotel in Washington D.C. To register for the 2024 NASHTU Conference, click here.
The NASHTU Conference provides an important opportunity for transportation unions to come together and strategize about how best to serve our members and deliver safe, cost-effective transportation projects for taxpayers.
The conference is also a chance to hear from some of the preeminent transportation leaders in Washington. Past conferences included the congressional leaders of both Senate and House committees with jurisdiction over transportation and infrastructure and key transportation and labor officials from AASHTO, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, FHWA, Center for American Progress, American Highway Users Alliance, Economic Policy Institute, and many other transportation stakeholder organizations.
NASHTU conference attendees will be able to meet face-to-face with their state’s Congressional Representatives and Senators during the lobbying portion of the conference, reserved for the afternoon of Tuesday, June 4. The NASHTU Conference will also feature networking opportunities, including a Group Dinner where conference attendees can get to know union representatives from other states, and a Congressional Reception where they can mingle with Members of Congress and Congressional staff.
Again, to register for the conference, please visit our conference webpage.
A recent article in the Detroit Free Press highlights the excessive outsourcing of transportation work and its negative impact on state staffing levels. Representatives from SEIU 517M, a NASHTU affiliate, are heavily
Among the deluge of actions and executive orders signed last week, Trump directed government agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
With Great Sadness, NASHTU Announces the Passing of Mary J. Richards Mary J. Richards, one of the union leaders that was instrumental in the creation of NASHTU, passed away on
A team of academic researchers found that the U.S. overspends for highway infrastructure and identified understaffed DOTs and an overreliance on consultants as the primary reasons for higher costs. Their
Baltimore Bridge Collapse Could Wipe Out Federal Emergency Funds The Washington Post is reporting that Maryland could jump ahead of states that have waited for more than a decade for emergency highway
Registration Now Open for the 24th Annual NASHTU Conference – Register Today! The 24th Annual NASHTU Conference will be held June 3 through 5, 2024 at the Hilton Capitol Hill Hotel in