By Lynne Hendricks
Staff Writer
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AMESBURY — As the state embarks on a long-awaited widening of Amesbury's Route 110 roadway, local police are expressing some disappointment that the Massachusetts Highway Department is choosing to use flagmen instead of the town's police force to handle increased traffic during construction.
Citing their lack of training and an inability to enforce a directive to either "stop" or "slow down" among drivers, Amesbury police Chief Mark Gagnon said the flagmen can do nothing more than hold a sign by the side of the road and turn it from "slow" to "stop" as conditions warrant. Considering the high volume of traffic moving through bottleneck conditions east of Interstate 495, that's not good enough, he said.
"It's just not a good arrangement," said Gagnon of the two flagmen stationed along Route 110. "They're very limited in what they can do. All they can do is stand along the Jersey barriers and turn the signs around to "Slow" and "Stop." (MassHighway) might as well put a slow sign out there."
Use of flagmen on state road projects is a practice embraced by Gov. Deval Patrick, who pushed through new regulations in 2008 that allow the state to replace police officers on certain state highway job sites as a means of saving money. Since that time, the regulations have succeeded in doing what the governor intended, MassHighway spokesman Adam Hurtubise said.
"Since the flagger regulation went into effect, we've saved $15.5 million dollars without any impact on public safety," Hurtubise said.
But Gagnon thinks that when you break down the numbers, the savings aren't what the public was told when Patrick first advocated the change.
"Police get $40 an hour," Gagnon said. "Most of the towns are pretty close to that. Flagmen, I think they get about $16 an hour themselves, but then when you add the benefits the state has to pay, they end up getting the same as a police officer. They're part of the union."
Hurtibise said the contractor for the Amesbury project bid $30 per hour for flaggers. The contractor is required to pay the prevailing wage, which is wage plus benefits, a total cost of about $35 per hour.
"That means that the contractor is taking a loss on this particular item," Hurtibise said.
Hourly rates for flaggers have been a hotly contested issue, with police arguing the savings are minimal. During 2008 hearings on the matter, the state watchdog group Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation pointed out that flaggers would be paid on average $19 per hour, but they would also get benefits that would cost an extra $14 per hour.
For years in Massachusetts, police officers have had a monopoly on so-called "detail duty," with many earning $40 or more to direct traffic. The hourly rate is written into their union contracts, and it varies by community.
Patrick's policy only applies to state roads, such as Route 110. Police details are still exclusively used on local roads.
Chief's concerns
Gagnon's concerned that the flagmen aren't trained to handle an emergency, or to appropriately direct traffic in the event of an emergency vehicle attempting to make its way through the Route 110 bottleneck. They don't carry radios, so in the event of an accident, their ability to respond to the incident is limited to hold up their stop sign and hope for the best, he said.
"One day they had the flagmen out there alone, and a dump truck was trying to back out, and they're not allowed to do any more than hold the signs," Gagnon said. "One of the construction guys got out and halted traffic to get the dump truck out."
Another day, Gagnon drove by and saw one of the state's flagmen sitting on one of the Jersey barriers set up to direct traffic through the congested corridor.
"We never allow a police officer to sit on a Jersey barrier while he's directing traffic," Gagnon said. "It's just a whole different level of professionalism in their ability to help the public. There's just endless possibilities, and paying the same or maybe a couple dollars more to have a police officer there is well worth it."
However, Hurtubise said that since the use of flagmen has been implemented on a number of state projects there have been no incidents where public safety was compromised. And he said the savings has been vast, not just because of the monies saved by hiring lower paid employees, but by doing away with the block pay arrangement they must observe when paying police officers to do the same work.
"The savings comes from not just paying less to flaggers than to police officers, but the majority of the savings comes from being able to control the number of people on the work site and pay them only for the number of hours they're working," Hurtubise said.
Where previous contracts with police required the state to pay officers in four-hour blocks regardless of how many man-hours were required, paying flagmen is a practice that allows the state to pay on an hour-by-hour basis.
"If we need one flagman for one hour, we pay them for an hour," he said.
Gagnon hasn't seen evidence of the massive savings promised by Patrick, he said, and noted that while he believes in making changes to reap big savings, he doesn't see that the use of flagmen has accomplished as much. Considering the potential risks to public safety through the use of flagmen, he said it's just not worth it.
"It's a very contentious issue throughout the state because it was all done on the premise of saving money, and I haven't heard of that happening," Gagnon said.
"If you're paying the same money, then it makes no sense," he said. "It's frustrating the way they're being used because you're getting a less trained, less professional person that makes the same money. We understand about saving money, but when there's no savings, there's no sense in doing it."
