Todays Tribune has a story on the expense of snow plowing in Methuen titled “plowed streets a luxury”. The gist of the story is that Council Chairman Phil Lahey, a retired DPW worker who plowed streets for many years, maintains that:
I don’t think we can afford to do the super duper job that we’ve been doing
Chairman Lahey’s viewpoint is that we are using to much hired equipment (contractors for actual plowing and rented sanders) With the increased expense of salt Chairman Lahey also points out that we sand and salt areas that were not done when he was plowing.
The city, for the most part, sanded only the main streets, hills and intersections about ten or twelve years ago, Lahey said. But now they sand and salt streets “that could be so levelthat you could put a golf ball on them and it wouldn’t roll,” he said.
His essential point comes right at the end if the Tribune story.
I’m just saying,”Guys…We’re just not going to be able to sand and salt every single street in Methuen.”
As far as my response goes I said in the story that we will listen to any proposal that will save us money, and we have agreed to review snow removal. We have pointed out the tremendous increase in commodity prices, with salt going from $42 per ton to $58.50 per ton along with the tremendous spike in gasoline costs. We have also pointed out the increase in road miles that we are responsible for because of residential growth in Methuen. And additionally we must factor in our ability to get our public safety vehicles in and out of any spot in Methuen. As we look at this proposal judging which roads ought not to be salted and sanded becomes a real problem, with the attendant political questions that will center around such decision making. Finally we have issued a five year study that compares our costs to those in surrounding communities, and have found that we were at the low end of that scale. So as we evaluate costs in this area I will not utilize outright service cutbacks in this area as a method of cost reduction. What do you think?
Bill Manzi.com 
Your Honor,
The first question I have is what happens to budget surpluses in years of low precipitation?
Can the surplus be added to the budget for the following year to accumulate cash to cover a seasons with excessive precipitation?
It’s funny how politicians decide to get even with electorate at times of tight budgets. We will close fire stations, fewer police, larger class room. There is no process to improve efficiency, and find new ways to do things as in private business.
I don’t know if Chairman Lahey is reacting petulantly or if the Tribune is exaggerating the story. Maybe he is correct that we cannot always clean down to the pavement, but the DPW must 1. open the roads for emergency services; 2. sand and salt hills for safety and 3. get the rest passable so the people can safely carry on with their business.
Additional clean up may be necessary if the next storm follows closely.
There has to be a balance between private and public workers and equipment for maximum efficiency.
This takes effective management to accomplish effectively.
Can the DPW institute a program of continuous improvement where employees and management implement ideas. The incentive should be reduced cost will protect their jobs.
What do you think would happen if you tried to implement such an idea?
Jules.
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Jules,
The Snow and Ice removal line has been traditionally underfunded, so no surplus has existed there in my memory. That line is the only one that can be carried forward in the negative, although Methuen has never done so. As I mentioned in my post salt had a huge increase, our coverage area has expanded substantially, and fuel obviously has gone way up. I believe that the Chairman would like to reduce costs by utilizing the same system employed when he was with DPW, which called for sanding and salting only main roads, intersections, and hills. We will look at any innovative ways to reduce costs, and I have spoken to DPW from the top down looking for ways to economize. The truth is Jules that service costs money. In this case part of Chairman Laheys bone of contention is the extent to which we have privatized this service. He objects to paid outside help, and feels we would not need it were we to simply utilize existing personnel under the old system. But that is a service cutback, with both substantive and political ramifications. We will examine our policy and do our best to economize without cutting service.
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The Mayor is correct on this issue in my opinion.
Over the past thirty years Methuen’s performance in making our roads acccessible quickly has been remarkable and both Managers and Mayors have done a good job of getting the best bang out of every buck without waste or extravengence.
This has been so in spite of the fact that the state, through higher bid prices, has taken many of the large private trucks out of local service.
I am sure Phil Lahey knows this very well and equally sure that his comments in the press do not fully express his thinking on the subject.
I would suspect that Phil would really like to see a build up in DPW resources rather than dependance on outside contractors.
What would probably be helpful is a full publc hearing on the work DPW does, what goes into the decision making process and just how accountable and professional things are.
Cutting this item is just not a good idea.
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When I first moved to Methuen, my road had not been accepted by the town (it was a new development) and our contractor plowed our street. No salt, no sand, and he would usually wait until the end of the storm to save money. It was pretty awful, and the car I had made it worse. We were overjoyed when we got real plowing from the town.
I have three young children as well; I want them to be able to get to and come home from school safely. If one of them is seriously injured, I want an ambulance NOW, not one that has to drive slow to be safe or ends up stranded. Let’s not forget most of the police cruisers are rear-wheel drive boats that aren’t exactly conducive to extreme winter driving.
On the other side of the coin, we have plows coming down our street well after they are needed; if they are barely creating a wall into my driveway they don’t need to be there anymore. They need to check the weather as well. If it’s going to be 40 and sunny after a storm, mother nature will take care of the remainder of their plow efforts. Some planning of routes taken might reduce the miles driven as well, a la UPS’ no left turn initiative.
Money is tight, and it isn’t too much to ask a private contractor to figure out a way to reduce their cost. The alternative for them is to get nothing.
In this day and age, safe roads are a must-have. If the council thinks it is too expensive to maintain, you could easily add $45,000 to the plow budget by dumping their stipends.
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