Snow Plowing Forum banner

Did Mass DOT do away with 3/4 and 1 tons?

13K views 43 replies 23 participants last post by  Big Dog D 
#1 ·
I am looking over the newest rate sheet from Mass DOT and the smallest truck listed is 11,000gvw and over....
Looks like they have done away with most smaller equipment???? Anyone confirm?
 

Attachments

#3 ·
I feel your pain

Italiano67;1070559 said:
At least the truck rates seem fair. Over here everything is done for nothing. As long as your working here it doesnt matter if you lose money.:confused:
There is more to that story, They are purchasing more equipment in house and are going to try and limit the hours the contractors get...It will be a mess...
I understand 100% as I am working for NHDOT now and the pay sucks!!!
All they can say is you are lucky you are working...That is their attitude.
I'm like a living wage would be nice...Benefits are nice but they dont pay the bills, put oil in the furnace etc....
Frustrating as I am making less per hour now than I have made in 20 years..
Most of the guys work second and third jobs,just to get by. I think things are very tuff all over...
 
#5 ·
Common sense is optional...

Italiano67;1070587 said:
If they think they can do the work with their own equipment cheaper they better hire some smarter bean counters.
It is sad at a government level that it seems no one thinks...
It has been since the 80's when Mass Highway owned and operated its own fleet of Oshkosh's and Walter snowfighters.
In over 20 years they have no measureable large equipment left, No garages at the pit level to speak of. No crews,or quarters, just small office trailers and a fuel pump. The largest repair facility was torn down, the land was cleaned up and sold.Sitting on the land is now an office building.
It will be VERY exspensive for Massachusetts to go backwards and rebuild their fleet.
Throw in even 25 years ago they had limited privatization...
Finding qualified operators is getting more and more difficult with each passing year.Even NH is going with all automatics as they cannot find drivers that can shift anymore...Especially down in the southern part of the state.It is a fact nation wide that less and less workers are getting into trucking/the trades and for good reason I may add...
I almost think it is some sort of power play,an expensive power play just the same.
 
#10 ·
02powerstroke;1070955 said:
whys that? you get called in like 3 hours before it even starts snowing and stay on for most of the day cleaning up the next day after its over its a tit deal man...
Well im talking about their tri axles. rates. 69/hr for hualing. and 117 for a plow. I dont know what penndot is for hauling but penndot is 170/hr for plow and spreader.
 
#11 ·
Mas rate for Tri-axle

Mackman;1071031 said:
Well im talking about their tri axles. rates. 69/hr for hualing. and 117 for a plow. I dont know what penndot is for hauling but penndot is 170/hr for plow and spreader.
Hi,

The Mass rate for a tri-axle is $153.50 for a combo and add $35 per hour if you have a wing.
They will try and nickle and dime you on the wing,been there done that........
 
#12 ·
Oshkosh;1071036 said:
Hi,

The Mass rate for a tri-axle is $153.50 for a combo and add $35 per hour if you have a wing.
They will try and nickle and dime you on the wing,been there done that........
Ok my bad.... Still alittle low but over all not bad. What do you mean by nickle and dime you with a WING??
 
#13 ·
my 1 ton dump is 11000 gvw.

I noticed they're offering more for a skid steer than a smaller sized truck too. I think they said $84 for a skidsteer vs about $80 for the smaller trucks.

How much work can there be for a skidsteer -- where are they using them--or are they just piling snow in lots somewhere?
 
#14 ·
Mackman;1071037 said:
Ok my bad.... Still alittle low but over all not bad. What do you mean by nickle and dime you with a WING??
When we had lean winters they would say,well you only had the wing down for six hours of the ten you where in.....Stuff like that....
Depending on the boss he would say dont use your wing this storm and he would subtract the wing rate......
From year to year I never knew how the foreman was going to be..After ten years I had enough...
They where brutal with my Oshkosh...I had one foreman who would call in pickups only and leave my Oshkosh parked as he thought he was saving the state money.That cost him the pit finally...lol M.F! One storm he left me parked for eight hours, when he called I was busy his roads(Rt 128) packed up hard...That was the last storm he was a foreman and the last storm I wasnt first called...He had to look out his office window at my Oshkosh with ice ripper blades on the belly blade sitting all night as he saw his job slipping away...
 
#15 ·
Kramer;1071079 said:
my 1 ton dump is 11000 gvw.

I noticed they're offering more for a skid steer than a smaller sized truck too. I think they said $84 for a skidsteer vs about $80 for the smaller trucks.

How much work can there be for a skidsteer -- where are they using them--or are they just piling snow in lots somewhere?
After I gave up my own business, the next winter I couldn't handle sitting in the house so I ran a Case skid steer with a blower,clearing sidewalks around our state rotarys.
Post storm clean up we would do over and under passes with it,anything with a sidewalk...
This was back in 2002/2003 and it was well over $125 per hour...
And to think I had sold 4 Bombardier sidewalk machines the year before.lol Its all about timing..
 
#16 ·
Italiano67;1070587 said:
If they think they can do the work with their own equipment cheaper they better hire some smarter bean counters.
How do you figure? Around here the DOT has plenty of work it can be doing with the equipment year round, plenty of hot top and other stuff to haul so the trucks will see action year round. The state also does not need to make a profit, and I believe ( but may be wrong) is exempt from fuel taxes as well as exempt from sales tax on all of its purchases

I always wonder the logic behind "saving money" by privatizing and that applies to a lot more then just snow plowing
 
#17 ·
BigLou80;1071121 said:
How do you figure? Around here the DOT has plenty of work it can be doing with the equipment year round, plenty of hot top and other stuff to haul so the trucks will see action year round. The state also does not need to make a profit, and I believe ( but may be wrong) is exempt from fuel taxes as well as exempt from sales tax on all of its purchases

I always wonder the logic behind "saving money" by privatizing and that applies to a lot more then just snow plowing
If they used their equipment year round it maybe justified...
NH Turnpikes parks their ten wheelers all summer.
They have 2002's with 50k miles on them ,I've seen their trucks hit the auctions with less than 70k miles on them.
At $180,000 each I think it would be cheaper for them to contract out their wheeler plowing.
They are not well maintained either.I know this first hand.
 
#18 ·
People use the economy as a way to screw you out of money. I cant tell you how many times ive heard "well your lucky to have a job at all".....That should not give people the right to cut wages or rates. Trucks are not cheap to run neither is insurance. When I looked into putting my 1 ton on with the town the insurance they wanted was going to be so expensive i might barely make a profit. Plus i think my town called the subs in 3 times last year. 5 years ago they would call them out everystorm and the roads looked very good after a snowfall......now its pitiful what the roads look like after a storm.
 
#19 ·
BigLou80;1071121 said:
How do you figure? Around here the DOT has plenty of work it can be doing with the equipment year round, plenty of hot top and other stuff to haul so the trucks will see action year round. The state also does not need to make a profit, and I believe ( but may be wrong) is exempt from fuel taxes as well as exempt from sales tax on all of its purchases

I always wonder the logic behind "saving money" by privatizing and that applies to a lot more then just snow plowing
:dizzy:

You haven't been in business for yourself very long, have you?

At the very least, I'd guess you don't pay your fair share of taxes with that mindset. :dizzy:
 
#20 ·
jomama45;1071190 said:
:dizzy:

You haven't been in business for yourself very long, have you?

At the very least, I'd guess you don't pay your fair share of taxes with that mindset. :dizzy:
9 years now, pay plenty of taxes cringe every time I send a check to Boston. Moving to Vermont in a few weeks in an attempt to send fewer checks to Boston

However if an entity that is exempt from most taxation and does not need to make a profit can't provide a service for less then one who pays too many taxes and must make a profit something is wrong with entity number one. Which we know there is but privatizing is not the answer.

Look at health care, the insurance companies and the right wing screamed bloody murder that they couldn't compete with a government option it would put them out of business
 
#21 ·
i would think that it would be cheaper to sub, im not sure by you guys, but i have heard stories that the IDOT around here pays VERY well. again, thats what i have heard, so if theres an IDOT member here that would be interesting to confirm. but im sure they are getting some type of extra pay for nights, weekends, holidays? heck the city workers around here are making 30-35 per hour on straight time, overtime, holidays, you could be talking 40-50 per hour just for the operator
 
#22 ·
plus pension, health benefits, etc
Easily at the end of the day could be $70/hour for a state employee.

And, of course, don't forget the very finest in brand new equipment, totally done to their "strange and different" specs and whenever it actually needs some work, sell it off at auction at 1/4 price

yeah, can't understand why subs could be cheaper.
 
#23 ·
Oh man

WTF, NH DOT starts at $11 per hour for truck drivers...It takes 8 years to get up to $17 per hour...No one is getting rich much less making a living wage in the state system here in NH...
I've heard the"You are lucky to have a job" speech,That is B.S sorry we live paycheck to paycheck and month to month working for the state here.It sucks frankly....We have to have winter O.T to survive.
I would say that 60% of the state employees I know have second and or third jobs just to get by...
This state should be ashamed at how they treat their employees...They wonder why they have huge turnover,why they have to buy automatic transmissions,Why jobs go unfilled months at a time in the worst economy since the great depression.
Get this ,our "Union" wants to know what we would be willing to give up to appease the Governor this next negotiation.......
Out of the eight guys in our two sheds all eight would leave if offered the same pay in a different line of work.Whats that tell you?
If you are thinking of working for the state,talk with me first,if you have half a brain you will be glad you did...
We wont even get into the lack of maintenance of the equipment that was on the trade list three years ago that we are still running.The fact that we are keeping trucks much longer than their useful first line life and we have hired no extra mechanics...The list of stupidity is endless....It goes right to the top!
 
#24 ·
Oshkosh;1071490 said:
WTF, NH DOT starts at $11 per hour for truck drivers...It takes 8 years to get up to $17 per hour...No one is getting rich much less making a living wage in the state system here in NH...
I've heard the"You are lucky to have a job" speech,That is B.S sorry we live paycheck to paycheck and month to month working for the state here.It sucks frankly....We have to have winter O.T to survive.
I would say that 60% of the state employees I know have second and or third jobs just to get by...
This state should be ashamed at how they treat their employees...They wonder why they have huge turnover,why they have to buy automatic transmissions,Why jobs go unfilled months at a time in the worst economy since the great depression.
Get this ,our "Union" wants to know what we would be willing to give up to appease the Governor this next negotiation.......
Out of the eight guys in our two sheds all eight would leave if offered the same pay in a different line of work.Whats that tell you?
If you are thinking of working for the state,talk with me first,if you have half a brain you will be glad you did...
We wont even get into the lack of maintenance of the equipment that was on the trade list three years ago that we are still running.The fact that we are keeping trucks much longer than their useful first line life and we have hired no extra mechanics...The list of stupidity is endless....It goes right to the top!
cant say that i have seen or heard that out this way. I even had a friedn work for a local city,.... dump truck needed 3 k in brake work , boss said sell it.... 95 chevy 4x4 3500 diesel, central hydro , spreader and western plow.... sold $1500 bucks....

they now have a new f 450
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top