MoDOT faces bipartisan wrath for winter storm response

Hell hath no fury like a legislator snowed in for hours on his commute. 

In a Facebook post Monday, the always voluble state Senator Nick Schroer (R-St. Charles County) called the Missouri Department of Transportation, the agency responsible for snow removal on highways and major thoroughfares, “the biggest waste of tax dollars.” 

In comments to SLM yesterday, he vowed to put his frustrations into action. 

Schroer was one of countless St. Louis area commuters on Monday who, after more than three inches of afternoon snowfall, noted the stark disparity between the roads that were the responsibility of municipalities and the major streets and highways that are MoDOT’s job to plow. The general consensus was that the cities did a relatively good job; MoDOT not so much. The frustration with the state agency was bipartisan. MoDOT, said Representative Marty Joe Murray (D-St. Louis), “absolutely dropped the ball.”

The agency was accused of similar blunders at the beginning of this year, only on a larger scale. In January, more than 10 inches of snow buried St. Louis, and while the days of icy roads that followed have been blamed for costing St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones her job, MoDOT also came in for serious criticism from St. Louis County residents.

At the time, however, the lackluster MoDOT response could be explained—at least in part—by the agency’s high turnover and a lack of staffing, which MoDOT said was due to hundreds of their employees making below the threshold to qualify for food assistance. Hundreds of others of MoDOT employees were working second jobs. The agency wanted to spend $60 million a year more on salaries, but that money was tied up in a legal battle with another state agency, the Office of Administration (which is controlled by the governor). That agency argued that MoDOT was limited in the ways it could spend money appropriated from the State Road Fund—and kicked off a years’ long impasse in November 2021 by refusing to issue paychecks with raises for MODOT employees.

In short, to many people’s minds, MoDOT had a pretty good excuse. 

That is no longer the case. In May, the Missouri Supreme Court gave finality to what lower courts had suggested: MoDOT was right. The agency now has much greater control of how its spends its money, including over employee pay. (Though, as a MoDOT spokesperson stressed, the agency still must submit an annual budget to be approved by the General Assembly and Governor’s Office.)

And that has led to some improvements, even if not a panacea. Representative Steve Butz (D-St. Louis), who sits on the House Transportation Committee, says it’s his understanding the agency is still short on plow drivers, in particular. “Those guys can make a lot more with their CDLs in the private sector.”

Even so, he says, “Every government agency is going to say ‘staffing.’ I know for a fact their staffing is better than it was and their rate of retention is better.” The situation Monday, he added, was “not the same as a year ago.” 

MoDOT spokesperson Taylor Brune says that raises went into effect July 1. “It was not a uniform pay increase for employees, but rather individual adjustments to bring positions to market and provide tenure-based increases. Senior managers and executive leaders were exempt from these increases,” Brune says. 

But it appears to be senior managers who bore responsibility for Monday’s conditions. The agency acknowledged that it didn’t pre-treat the roads under its purview. In a statement, it claimed that severe weather developed more quickly than expected on Monday, and so it coincided with many more drivers on the road at that exact time, trying to “beat” the snowfall. That drew skeptical news coverage, since both local television stations and the National Weather Service had predicted an earlier onset than 4 p.m., which is when MoDOT said it expected the storm to begin.

Butz didn’t buy the agency’s excuse. “[It was] not a large snow event,” he says. “But when you fail to pre-treat, it becomes a large snow event.”

As for Schroer, Butz called his Facebook post “ranting” with “no solutions.” To Butz’s mind, the solution is pretty straightforward: “They have to do a better job on snow removal.”

SLM asked Schroer if he had any solutions in mind. 

He said that as soon as possible, he planned to file two pieces of legislation in the state senate. One would take away MoDOT’s qualified immunity, meaning that it would be easier for a motorist injured on an icy road to sue the agency. (Schroer himself worked at one point for a personal injury firm, although he is no longer listed on its website.)

The second piece of legislation? 

He wants to undo the Missouri Supreme Court ruling solidified earlier this year giving MoDOT more control over its money. While Schroer himself is on the legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight, he says, “Right now there is no accountability and honestly no actual oversight.” 

But not everyone is on board. State Representative Michael Burton (D-Lakeshire), who also sits on the oversight committee, calls Schroer’s second idea “terrible…for many reasons.” He added, “We need to leave [transportation] decisions up to engineers, and not to politicians.”

MoDOT’s six commissioners are all already appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate, Burton says, which for years now have both been controlled by Schroer’s party. 

He thinks the real problem behind MoDOT’s woes is that Missouri spends the third-least of any state on transportation, on a per-mile basis. Given that, he says about Monday, “What did you expect to happen?”

Burton also noted that on September 10, MoDOT director Ed Hassinger showed up before the Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight to give testimony and answer questions. Burton says that only one Republican state senator showed up. He doesn’t recall who it was but he’s certain it wasn’t Schroer.

This story has been updated with additional comment from MoDOT.

Hear more on this story from Krull on The 314 Podcast.