GRAY, Maine — Some Maine Turnpike toll collectors are upset with how the quasi-state agency is tracking their performance, saying they’re being judged without having the opportunity to improve.
At the center of the dispute are reconciliation sheets — known by the toll takers as “sin sheets” — that reckon the number of vehicles that pass through a toll gate on a shift and the amount of money recorded as collected. The toll workers said they aren’t being given enough information, quickly enough, to figure out exactly why there are variances between those numbers. And it’s not that there’s missing money, they said, but rather records show more money than vehicles that pass through some toll gates.
“We’re looking for any avenue to succeed,” said Thomas Nunes, a toll collector in Scarborough who has worked for the turnpike for 25 years. “They’re tightening the screws on the variances. Eventually, everyone’s going to fail.”
Nunes and other toll takers represented by the Maine State Employees Association union met with the Bangor Daily News on Monday to make their case. One of the employees, Wilfried St. Pierre, said he believed he was being fired today for consistently showing variances that were unacceptable.
The turnpike allows collectors a $10 variance daily, plus $100 a month, total, noted Scott Tompkins, project information manager for the Maine Turnpike Authority. That’s down from $200 in 2008 and 2009.
“We’ve got 280 toll collectors; by and large they’re all satisfied with the process, they’re all conscientious, there aren’t any issues,” said Tompkins. “Apparently there are a few that don’t feel this is an appropriate mechanism to hold them accountable for how they do their jobs.
“We disagree.”
The Maine Turnpike Authority was created by the Maine Legislature in 1941 to build and operate the 109-mile toll highway from Kittery to Augusta. It has a $110 million annual budget, most of which comes from tolls.
Those tolls are central to what the collectors do.
When a vehicle goes through a toll gate, the collector uses a touch-screen computer to indicate what sort of vehicle it is — two-axle car, for example, or motorcycle, or truck towing a trailer. They collect the money, make change if they have to, and then have to hit a “fare paid” button before the vehicle passes a light sensor at the other end of the gate.
Tompkins said a minority of collectors either forget to hit that last button or don’t do it in time. In the system, that reads like a violation, a skipped toll, said Tompkins. But the money paid is still in the system, he said, leading to variances.
“Out of 280 toll collectors, you’re looking at 1 percent that has been affected by the policy,” said Tompkins.
Linda Anthony, one of the union members upset over the issue, said the collectors only get the variance sheets several weeks into the next month. In some cases, that means they’re being dinged with information from shifts six weeks earlier. Tompkins said the delay comes from a third-party collecting and counting the money, but Anthony suggested more information could be shared with collectors in real time.
“We don’t know what’s happening,” she said.
Anthony and the other collectors suggested a number of problems may be contributing to the variances. Sometimes drivers with an automated EZ Pass system forget they have it, and stop and pay. Sometimes vehicles are close in the lane and count as one. A tow truck may stop and pay, and the vehicle it’s hauling may have an EZ Pass that also pays. Sometimes, they said, EZ Pass vehicles in one gate register in another.
Tompkins said that was a problem with past systems, but not the EZ Pass.
St. Pierre suggested the managers “refuse to admit their machine is not perfect.”
When the turnpike managers have worked with toll takers having problems, said Anthony, the training has been superficial, not really helping the workers.
Brian Oelberg, a field representative for the MSEA, said the union has filed six grievances around the issue, with the first to go to arbitration in January. Twenty-six collectors have been disciplined for exceeding variance limits, he said. Three have faced suspensions. St. Pierre was suspended in April and July.
“We think the turnpike should do some real research as to the technological problems with the system, and do some real training,” said Oelberg.
The turnpike will need fewer collectors as EZ Pass becomes more widely used, the collectors acknowledged. But Anthony and other collectors said they thought the turnpike was intentionally making things difficult for some workers so they could be fired. That would mean they couldn’t collect unemployment benefits, they said.
Tompkins noted that the turnpike has an “open door policy.”
“There are appropriate avenues to take to have your voice heard,” said Tompkins. “I’m not sure that going to the press is necessarily the best way to do that.”