The Road Commission for Oakland County will have fewer employees available this winter to operate and maintain the snow plow vehicles and salt trucks due to ongoing budget cuts, the commission said Thursday in a news release.
"This winter, we will have about 50 fewer employees to drive snow plows and salt trucks," said Richard Skarritt, road commission chairman. "That is about one-third fewer drivers this year than we had in 2007."
Previously, RCOC had more than 100 drivers available to operate trucks for plowing snow and dispersing salt.
“That’s a substantial reduction in our ability to fight a prolonged storm, or even a series of small storms, or to clean up after a storm,” said RCOC Vice Chairman Eric Wilson. He said the reduction in staff is a direct result of declining state road funding for RCOC.
Spokesman Craig Bryson said they will be able to start off strong with every storm. The commission will have a full crew for the first 16 hours of every storm. However, Bryson said they will have less than half of the crew during the second 16 hours because the drivers are not allowed to be on the road longer than 16-hour shifts.
RCOC has been reducing staff in order to satisfy the budget cuts.
“This year is the fifth straight year in which our primary source of operating funds – revenue from the state gas tax and vehicle registration fees – has declined,” said RCOC board member Greg Jamian. “Those five years of decline follow nearly 10 years of virtually flat revenues. We’ll receive less funding in the current fiscal year than we received in 2000.”
Moreover, the commission has not been able to replace aging trucks. This could cause safety issues.
“Safety is RCOC’s No. 1 priority, and it pains us greatly to have to reduce the level of service we can provide,” Skarritt said.
It will take longer to clear snow and lay salt in neighborhoods this winter, the commission said.
“Safety dictates that we focus our reduced resources on the roads that carry the most traffic at the highest speeds,” Wilson said. “Only when those are sufficiently clear will we move to the slower, less-traveled subdivision streets.”
State road clearing impacted
The RCOC is responsible for many state roads in the county on a contract basis for the Michigan Department of Transportation. MDOT has mandated a lower level of service on some non-freeway state routes.
MDOT instructed the road commission not to clear the roads during overtime - any time other than the normal weekday shift from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., except during storms or otherwise instructed.
MDOT mandated that the road commission clear them to the point that the road is "generally bare of ice and snow" in the wheel tracks, and then finish clearing the next regular work day.
In the past, road commission crews would have cleared the roads to bare pavement regardless of the time.
Roads affected: Woodward (M-1), Northwestern Highway (M-10), Grand River Avenue in Farmington Hills (M-5), Rochester Road in Rochester Hills (M-150), Auburn Road in Rochester Hills (old M-59), Square Lake Road between Telegraph and I-75 (Business Route 75) and Ortonville Road (M-15) north of Dixie Highway. State routes not affected by this are: I-75, I-696, I-96, M-59, I-275, the freeway portion of M-10, the M-5 extension, US 24 (Telegraph) and M-24 (Lapeer Road).