PEF offers solutions to state transportation committee

By DEBORAH A. MILES
PEF provided testimony to the state Senate Committee on Transportation November 23 in Albany with staggering statistics and suggestions to save the state millions of dollars.

Edward Lucas, a PEF Executive Board member and civil engineer at the state Department of Transportation (DOT), told Sen. Martin Malave Dilan, chair of the committee, PEF identified a minimum of $82.5 million in engineering savings, and up to $108 million in other savings by reducing the use of private consultants in engineering and architect professions at DOT.

“The state can save millions by using state engineers rather than private consultants for bridge inspection, construction inspection and road design work. We have found $82.5 million in savings if 90 percent of the engineering consultants for DOT were replaced with state employees.

“The average DOT consultant in a civil engineering title makes $97.58 per hour. The average cost of a DOT engineer is $50 per hour, including benefits,” Lucas said. “Or you could say the difference is approximately $92,000 per year for a consultant with an average annual salary of $190,000, compared to $97,262 with benefits for DOT engineers.”

Bridges need repair
DOT’s capital plan ranks New York among the bottom 10 states for both highway and bridge conditions. More than one-third of the state’s bridges are more than 50 years old, the expected useful life of a bridge.

The state is facing not only a fiscal crisis, but an infrastructure crisis. Lucas said DOT has 6,625 state bridges already more than 50 years old. Without significant investment, DOT expects another 1,526 bridges to become deficient over the next five years, and another 1,472 over the next 10 years.
“These are alarming figures,” Lucas said. “The closure of the badly decayed Champlain Bridge shows how costly it is to fail to maintain our infrastructure. Replacing the bridge has been estimated to cost $50 million.”

Studies back up savings
Lucas said PEF has been pushing the idea to use state engineers at DOT time and again, as an alternative to hiring private consultants for bridge inspections, construction inspection and road design work.

“Studies and audits, including two Office of State Comptroller audits and a DOT-sponsored study performed by KPMG found New York could save millions of dollars annually by replacing consultant engineers with state employee engineers.

“And by replacing 90 percent of all bridge inspection consultants immediately, it could save at least $12 million a year,” Lucas said.

“Even more savings could be found if all professions at DOT were moved in-house, as DOT spends more on consultants than any other state agency except SUNY.

“Faced with the twin crises of billion dollar deficits and crumbling infrastructure, PEF believes any five-year capital plan should include ways to reduce DOT’s reliance on consultants. The time is now,” Lucas said.

PEF: Preventing injuries could save state millions

By SHERRY HALBROOK
PEF gave Gov. David Paterson six new recommendations in December that could save the state a big share of its estimated $227 million annual tab for workers’ compensation (WC) injuries suffered by state employees.

In a letter to Paterson, PEF President Ken Brynien cited the “urgent need to address the rising workers’ compensation injuries and related costs, to protect both the well-being of the state work force and to eliminate waste and inefficiency.”
PEF recommends the state:
• Establish a workgroup with representatives from key agencies, PEF and other state-employee unions to analyze the causes of injuries and affected occupations at each worksite and institute comprehensive preventive efforts;

• Develop a comprehensive occupational health and safety management program for the agencies with the worst problems, and staff the program with occupational health and safety professionals;

• Develop an initiative to reduce client assaults on staff;

• Invest in safe patient handling programs for agencies and worksites with substantial incidence of injuries from patient handling;

• Identify the causes of slips, trips and falls and develop solutions to prevent them; and
• Take maximum advantage of existing negotiated health and safety committees and funding to address these problems.

PEF made the recommendations after reviewing the annual report of the state Department of Civil Service on workers’ compensation costs for state employees, that looks at the data agency-by-agency, as well as statewide. The annual report is a requirement of a law passed a few years ago with PEF’s vigorous support.

“We worked to get this law passed, because it gives the state hard data and insights into the magnitude of the problem, exactly where, how and in which jobs these accidents are occurring,” Brynien said, but it’s wasted unless the state makes the necessary changes to reduce injuries and costs.”

According to the report, the total direct compensation costs for the state jumped 22 percent from nearly $18.7M in fiscal year 2007-08 to nearly $22.8M in 2008-09.

Medical costs alone went up nearly 5 percent to $20.3M, and the total work days lost were up 8.4 percent. In fact, the total time lost was like losing 1,034 full-time employees for an entire year.

The injuries also cost the state millions of dollars in indirect costs that can add up to five times the direct costs.

The overall rate of new WC cases was up 3 percent over 2007-08. The state Office of Children and Family Services’ rate topped the list, rising 33 percent in 2008-09 to 19.6 claims per 100 employees.

Collectively, OCFS and three other agencies employ 47 percent of the covered employees, but account for more than 75 percent of the incidents and lost workdays, and nearly 80 percent of the costs.