LIMESTONE, Maine — Officials remain hopeful that negotiations over a contract to renovate Massachusetts transit buses will soon be resolved, allowing 35 Maine Military Authority employees laid off in October to be called back to work.
The state-run MMA’s $19 million contract to renovate 32 Massachusetts Transit Bay Authority buses was put on hold because of unanticipated cost overruns.
MMA and MBTA representatives “are still trying to negotiate something and it is taking longer than they had hoped,” Susan Faloon, spokesperson for the Maine Emergency Management Agency, wrote in an email on Monday. “No word yet on anyone going back to work.”
During a meeting on Dec. 7 of the Loring Development Authority, which leases facilities to MMA on the former Loring Air Force Base, LDA President Carl Flora said he was hearing that the employees might be “back to work on the buses soon.”
But according to one LDA board member, some of the workers might not want to return.
“I talked to a couple of those who are laid off, and by the way they talk, they will not go back,” said Miles Williams of Caribou. “Some are going to college, and there was one guy who had been working there for eighteen years who said he won’t go back because he’s been through [layoffs] too many times. We were afraid that we could lose some pretty good personnel, but that’s one of the risks you take.”
“It certainly is,” added Flora. “It’s the downside of going through a layoff. People appreciate stability and that’s something they have not had.”
According to the board president, 35 MMA employees were laid off while 35 remain.
Those who retained their jobs are focusing on two other projects while the MBTA contract is ironed out. These projects include end of life overhauls for eight retired buses that will be used for two fixed route operators in Maine. According to Flora, the Federal Transit Authority is monitoring this project closely and the result could lead to “formal recognition of an end of life overhaul program eligible for FTA funding.”
The other project involves overhauling landfill compactors and garbage trucks for a “major landfill operator.”
MMA, which is run under the Maine Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, was formed in 1997 to offer military vehicle repair services at the industrial park of the former Loring Air Force Base. After the drawdown of troops from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, MMA downsized and transitioned to servicing civilian vehicles
The contract with MBTA was MMA’s first foray into major transit system buses and MMA was the sole bidder. Refurbishing was expected to add another six years to the typical 12-year lifespan of the diesel-electric public transit buses used for public transportation services in the Greater Boston region.
But the buses presented a number of challenges shortly after work began, said Brig. Gen. Douglas Farnham, Maine’s top military official, during a press conference in Limestone in late September.
Farnham said the cost overruns stemmed from “the complexity of the project, the condition of the incoming buses, some unexpected part variations and misunderstandings in the scope of work.” Other challenges have included the tight-turning nature of the highly maneuverable buses and their dual diesel-electric engines.
Star-Herald staff writer Anthony Brino contributed to this report.
