CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Transportation Secretary Tom Smith said Tuesday the state Division of Highways is having a difficult time filling some positions in county’s with growing economies.
Smith, during an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline” to give an update on the Roads to Prosperity program, said those vacancies can impact highway maintenance projects in places like Morgantown and the Eastern Panhandle.
“It is very hard for us to keep transportation workers. Morgantown is an example of that where we are way under our quota because of the booming economy of Morgantown makes it so our workers go to other places,” Smith said. “We’re constantly having to struggle with staffing issues there, that makes it hard for us to get those potholes fixed.”
Smith said that’s not an excuse but it’s reality. It said he’s confident the agency will be able to fill the jobs. The DOH held a hiring event Tuesday in Martinsburg for entry level jobs for Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
There’s also another looming staffing issue for DOH that’s connected to the Roads to Prosperity program. About dozen current DOH workers, most of them engineers, are seeking exemptions from the state Ethics Commission that will allow them to look for engineering jobs in the private sector. Smith said it’s vitally important to keep engineers.
“What we are doing is looking at market conditions and where we have the ability to justify reclassifying positions to keep up with market conditions we are going to be looking ahead to doing that,” Smith said.
He said there are challenges but the positives outweigh the negatives.
“The highway department has never been busier than we are right now. We’re up to the task. We’re rising to the challenge and so we’re out and rolling,” Smith said.
Smith updates on the Roads to Prosperity program:
–contracts for the first round of Garvee bonds that were sold last September are already on the street including several interstate rehabilitation projects.
–second round of Garvee bonds worth $91 going to bond market in the coming days. The money will finance 36 additional projects include slide repairs, bridge replacements and drainage work.
–first round of General Obligation bonds sold in May brought in $913 million which will fund approximately 10 of the most expensive construction projects including interstate bridges in Nitro and Wheeling. The first job to go to bid will be the Turnpike widening project in Beckley. These projects are design-build.
–first round of Parkway Authority bonds, $172 million, will be sold in early August. The bonds will finance projects in 10 southern West Virginia counties including the King Coal Highway and a 70-mile project on Route 10 between Man and Kegley that will include bridges, turning lanes and slide corrections.
The bonds are part of the Roads to Prosperity amendment, which voters passed overwhelmingly approved last October and will fund $1.6 billion worth of road construction projects in West Virginia.