toll collectors

Gross, aggressive, rude and occasional lewd behavior by toll collectors of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority is detailed in customer complaints posted by The Smoking Gun (TSG), an investigative website owned by Court TV. This has created quite a stir.

Local press are calling it a $35k golden handshake for toll collectors at the Ohio Turnpike. Turnpike executive director George Distel says it is strictly a "voluntary separation incentive plan" - which we say deserves an acronym: VSIP (vee-sip). Fulltime employees who volunteer to leave the Turnpike will get the $35k VSIP.

After a week in the crosshairs of hostile media for Easter backups at toll plazas, the Massachusetts Turnpike has changed course. Executive director Alan LeBovidge is now saying he'll call off the planned June layoff of 50 collectors (called 'takers' in local Mass lingo) and begin hiring part-time seasonal collectors for summer and holiday peaks of traffic.

Massachusetts is a police state. Not in governance of course, but in pay - if the Massachusetts Turnpike's 2008 payroll is any measure. The Boston Herald put the data on their website this morning. We imported that into an Excel spreadsheet which generates some amazing data on police pay and police costs to the Turnpike. The 138 miles (222km)  of the Turnpike has 172 state troopers on payroll fulltime, paid in 2008 an average of $150,537 for the year.

Toll collectors have priced themselves out of a job at the Massachusetts Turnpike. The base pay plus benefits of a fulltime collector cost the Turnpike Authority $71k/yr ($35.70/hour). With seniority some staff collect tolls on a base rate of $80k/yr, and with overtime make as much as $90k/yr, the Turnpike Authority says. (Contract suppliers of toll collections services typically employ staff at about $11/hour or about $22k/yr with scant benefits.)