June 5, 2007
Morning Roundup: How it Is Edition
Good morning, Washington. Predictions of a cold front that will bring in spring-like conditions tomorrow have us a little bit giddy this morning, so we hope you'll forgive us for putting up a slightly hurried morning roundup so we can seize the opportunity to dance around our office with glee. You know want to do the same, so go on, we won't tell.
Post Starts Beating Examiner's Drum: A front page story this morning in the Washington Post details the large increase in overtime costs at Metro. After examining documents from WMATA, the Post reports that over the past five years, overtime payments have increased by about 56 percent, topping out at nearly $91 million last year. The story, which does include new details and figures, comes about two months after the Examiner first broke the story about Metro's overtime gluttony.
Needle Ban May Be Lifted: The congressional ban that prohibits the District from spending its own funds to provide clean syringes to addicts could soon disappear. A key House subcommittee takes up the appropriations bill today that includes D.C.'s spending plan. The Post reports that the Democratically-controlled House looks set to lift the ban. The District has one of the worst HIV-AIDS rates in the country.
Briefly Noted: Fenty opposes new Economic Development Authority ... Unifest driver Bell has long history of addiction... Scooter Libby to be sentenced today ... D.C. Schools comptroller quits.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we wondered if less counter-terrorism funding could actually spell a safer District and reminded you that uncut grass could cost you $500.
Photo by yonas1
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Sommer, I really think you are becoming too emotionally attached to the weather forecast.
You gotta love meteorological nerdiness....keep the forecasts coming.
what happened to the shiloh properties?
I used to work a job where I would occasionally be offered the chance to work overtime. If I had the time, I'd take the offer: the chance to make time-and-a-half pay was always welcome.
Metro drivers are "guilty" of the same thing. WMATA is having to deal with staffing shortages, and so there are plenty of chances for a driver to step in and earn some extra cash.
It's crazy to fault the drivers for jumping at the chance to make close to twice their annual salary due to overtime. And the phrase "Metro's overtime gluttony" is a factually inaccurate. Metro isn't gluttonous when it comes to overtime, and neither are its drivers. Its drivers are merely seizing opportunities they'd be crazy to pass up, thanks in large part to WMATA's poor human resource management.
And people who scream about "lucrative union contracts" are merely jealous that they don't have a similarly sweet deal.
Staff the driver force as it should be, the overtime issue goes away, and the already tenuous dotted line that gets drawn between proposed fare increases, budget deficits and driver overtime magically goes away as well.
Besides, well rested drivers who only need to work one assigned shift, rather than also cover for a scheduling gap, might also be less prone to make sometimes deadly errors in judgment.
The alternative is route and schedule cutbacks -- "Sorry, no 16A bus today; we don't have a driver who can cover the route."
Yes JC, the drivers should not be faulted for taking advantage of the system as it is. But I suspect people are more angry that the system is as it is. The lack of drivers is a manufactured condition. To become a subway driver, you have to be a bus driver first. To be a bus driver you need to start off with a probationary period where you just work part time. That's a manufactured barrier to entry. I suspect it was put in place by the union under some claimed justification of safety. But maybe it was just the idea of WMATA. Either way, it creates the shortages that the workers take advantage of.
Nobody should fault the drivers for working in the system that's presented to them, but we can fault the system for creating results nobody wants to pay for.
WMATA should definitely toss out the 'probationary period' portion of its hiring policies (or union contract) and start hiring. The WaPost's article indicated that many drivers are paid $21 an hour, which is a more than fair wage. I wonder how many more people they could hire to over the overtime without upsetting the pension fund balance? Potentially dozens? That's a lot of well-paying jobs for D.C. residents.
Metro should follow NJ Transit's (and DDOT's with the Circulator) lead and contract out most of the bus routes. Private contractors, free of oppressive union contracts and work rules, would own and operate the busses under the Metro name. Metro would set the schedules. Metro would the contracts and financial penalties and incentives to enforse quality measurs like on-time performance. It has worked well, and resulted in major cost savings, in NJ where private contractors run many bus routes in Newark, Asbury Park, New Brunswick and other cities.
I could see a private bus line making a killing being an express bus root with half or a third of the stops of a normal bus. I would give anything to have a 14th or 16th street line that didn't have a stop every other street.