On Wed., Oct. 21st, I attended a “listening session” held at one of our local Dept. of Transportation (DOT) patrol sheds. It was hosted by State Employees Association SEA/SEIU Local 1984. I was joined by two other Democrat State Representatives, Samantha Jacobs and Jim Gruber and one Republican, Sly Karansinski.
What we were told was that the DOT (or at least our local ones in Cheshire County) is in dire shape due to lack of funding. This goes right back to continuous revenue repealing by the government hating Free Staters. Here’s what we heard from employees:
- Wages are so low ($17 an hour without a CDL), some employees need to take additional jobs. One in three lives paycheck to paycheck.
- It takes up to a year of training to get a CDL license, with most leaving for higher paying jobs in the private sector ($25-30 an hour).
- There has been no cost of living raises (COLA), since Gov. Sununu. And he was there for eight years, so who knows when?
- How does this work? The pay is higher for a new employee than the person who is doing the training and has been employed longer. Huh??
- Not only is morale down we were told, but staffing is down about 20% in this district, which is District 4. Other patrol sheds are experiencing more than 50% vacancies.
- One younger employee brought up the point that when there’s a lack of work peers, people with more experience, it becomes stressful with no one to turn to, adding to the low morale. Vehicles are not being timely maintained as there’s not enough employees to do so.
- It used to be hard to get a job with the state, but was worth it to stay for a long time. Now, everyone needs a second job.
- One employee stated he did a wage comparison of surrounding states and New Hampshire comes in at the bottom. Something else we’re dead last for . . .
- here’s a loss of engineers. UNH has internship programs where a student works for five years under another engineer’s license, only to leave after the required time period. Better paying jobs elsewhere. We were given an example: a Manchester company pays its civil engineer managers anywhere from $128,400 to $202,900. The DOT? $77,418 to $121,222. Who wouldn’t work in the private sector?
- Mowing isn’t taking place as often as needed. Snow plowing in the winter has a new policy of now leaving up to 5” of snow before plowing. Lack of employees necessitates private trucks hired to do plowing and naturally that cost is higher. But if the state can pay for that, why not give a livable wage to those already employed?
What else did these state employees have to say?
- They were bluntly told a lot of the cause is due to the decrease or outright elimination of state revenue, acknowledging this is unsustainable. Rep. Gruber stated the number is a $3 billion loss over the last 10-12 years. I mentioned that tariffs are also not helping anyone.
- The state has not increased gas taxes since 2014, when it rose from 18.0¢ to 22.2¢ per gallon.
- They all stated there is an immediate need to increase wages and to prioritize state employees.
In Aug., the legislature was able to overturn Gov. Ayotte’s earlier veto on raising the cost at turnpike tolls, calling it “a tax increase on Granite Staters”. And she wasn’t the only one, Republicans on the Executive Council said they would support no turnpike toll increase. More revenue the majority party scoffed at and didn’t want, but will go into effect anyway.
This will raise tolls for only those without a NH E-ZPass account raising more than $50 million a year for turnpike and highway projects. After all, the roads are not going to fix themselves . . .
My colleagues and I left hoping these state employees have come to realize the majority party is not their friend, quite the opposite and they’ll vote accordingly!