This morning, MDOT’s Chief Operations Officer, Tony Kratofil, sent the industry the following email with an update on their temporary layoffs plan:
“Industry Partners,
I am writing to follow up on my message to you last week regarding the temporary layoffs for state employees to address budget shortfalls as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
MDOT requested and received approval for exemptions for our employees who generally fall in three categories:
- Construction Contract Oversight – our people in the field providing day to day contract administration, inspection and testing for active construction projects.
- Transportation First Responders – our people, mostly maintenance supervisors and coordinators, who respond to crashes and emergencies on the transportation system to assist in managing the incident response and restoration of the system to safe operations as quickly as possible.
- Major Infrastructure Operations – our people who operate movable bridges, collect tolls at the International, Mackinac and Blue Water bridges, and who support critical infrastructure operations, like keeping the pump stations and other facilities running (in this crazy rain, for example).
These employees will continue to report for duty as usual, and will not serve temporary layoff days. These functions of the department should have no significant disruption.
All other permanent MDOT employees (over 2,000 people) will be participating in a temporary layoff plan, most of whom will be required to serve one day of temporary layoff per week for the next ten weeks. While there will be a few people on a variety of staggered schedules to ensure continuity of key business operations (transport permits, bid lettings, ProjectWise support, etc.), the vast majority of MDOT employees will serve these temporary layoff days according to the following schedule:
Friday, May 22nd
Tuesday, May 26th
(observance of Memorial Day is Monday, May 25th)
Friday, June 5th
Monday, June 8th
Friday, June 19th
Monday, June 22nd
Thursday, July 2nd
(observance of Independence Day is Friday, July 3rd)
Monday, July 6th
Friday, July 17th
Monday, July 20th
Employees will be directed to not work on their temporary layoff days, which includes not answering emails or phone calls, so as to not jeopardize their benefits under the CARES Act workshare program. Consequently, if you or your members have business to conduct with MDOT on those days that does not involve our construction oversight or transportation first responder staff, please plan to address it before or after the dates noted above.
In a nutshell, MDOT’s business will continue throughout this period, more or less as usual, but with a few long weekends in between. Construction projects and bid lettings will move forward as planned.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
Thanks for your understanding and ongoing partnership in delivering Michigan’s transportation programs and services.”
MITA will keep you updated on any changes in these temporary layoff plans as those details are provided to us.
If you have any questions, please contact Glenn Bukoski, VP of Engineering Services, at glennbukoski@thinkmita.org, or Rachelle VanDeventer, VP of Industry Relations, at rachellevandeventer@thinkmita.
