Guemes Island Ferry Committee

Allen Bush * Carl Cady   * Dyvon Havens * Steve Orsini * Glen Veal, Chairman

TO:  Tom Ballard, Interim Skagit County Public Works Director
FROM:  Guemes Island Ferry Committee
DATE: April 26, 2010

SUBJECT:  Methods for Reducing Ferry Costs

Since 2002 the County has seen the operational costs of the Guemes ferry climb without a corresponding increase in traffic. In fact annual vehicle numbers have gone down and are less than in 1996. The lower vehicle numbers are in spite of later week-day runs beginning in 2006.

The Guemes Island Ferry Committee is requesting that the County contain costs of operating the Guemes ferry by taking the following three actions:

1)  Stop scheduling crew overlap at shift change and end-of-day extra hours, which prevents showing non-op time in the schedule. The following are supporting arguments for this request:

a)  The contract between the Inland Boatman's Union and Skagit County has not been renegotiated to reflect the change in working hours or conditions, when the work day was reduced from 12 hours to 10 hours in November, 2002.  Your current Ferry Manager has been unable to fix the scheduling problem within the confines of the current contract over the past 8 years.

 b) Not renegotiating the IBU contract in 2002 resulted in the formation of two shifts: one full-time shift and one part-time shift. The full-time shift retained all the benefits of the contract while the part-time shift received no benefits. Rather than renegotiating a contract that shared the hours resulting from a reduction of the work day, an effort to provide "extended service" until 10 pm Mon - Thur resulted in a trial period of two years for "extended service". This was created not from the demand for more service fom Guemes Island residents, who voted against it in an advisory ballot sent to all registered voters by 75%.

c)  Adhering to the contractual obligation of 176 hours per month for a full-time employee initially resulted in paying 70 plus hours of non-operating time (payment for not working) per month. The County began scheduling crew overlap time to absorb non-op hours.  In addition, the County added a fourth crew person ostensibly to meet the Auditor’s finding of a cash handling problem although other less expensive alternatives were available.  Adding the fourth person for the entire schedule cost the County approximately $125,000 per year from 2003 through 2008. In 2006, the County added extended service costing about $100,000 per year.  After a two-year trial period, instead of eliminating the extended service, the Board  of County Commissioners decided to reduce long standing ferry runs on Friday and Saturday at midnight and Sunday runs before 8:00 am and after 8:00 pm. It also reduced the extended service on weekdays after 8:30 pm.  During this period of time from 2002 to 2010, adherence to the old IBU contract, addition of extended service, and adding the fourth crew person has cost the County approximately one million dollars. Current crew overlapping at shift changes and end-of-day time extension beyond contractual requirements is costing $30,000 per year. Despite this marked increase in costs, the system is not moving more vehicular traffic, which is the system’s prime revenue generator.

2)  Return the  Guemes Ferry Manager position to half time. This will save an additional $50,000 per year.

3)  Reduce the mechanic's time by 50% by utilizing him as a crew member, saving an additional $40,000 per year.

cc   

Ron Wesen

Ken Dahlstedt

Sharon Dillon