OCEAN CITY — In an effort to stay in front of another anticipated labor shortage, resort transportation officials this week discussed incentives for retaining returning drivers and attracting new ones.
For Ocean City, the departments most affected by last summer’s worker shortage were the transportation division; including bus drivers and Boardwalk tram operators, public works, including solid waste and maintenance; and recreation and parks.
During a Transportation Committee meeting on Tuesday, Public Works Director Hal Adkins, and his staff, including Acting Transit Manager George Peaks, discussed a variety of options for retaining drivers and attracting new ones for the municipal bus system and the Boardwalk tram. Both operations had their deployment schedules reduced last year because of the lack of staff.
Adkins outlined some proposals for bolstering staff in the transportation division, including wage hikes and potential signing bonuses. In addition, last month the Mayor and Council approved accelerated increases in the pay grades for certain full-time and part-time town staffers.
City Manager Doug Miller worked with Adkins and his staff on incentive packages to retain and attract new drivers. Miller cautioned against offering attractive signing bonuses for new drivers without incentivizing returning drivers.
ONLY the Desperate would work for that Town !!! Ask the Bus Drivers who LEFT !!!!!
Get rid of Vernon Perdue and your bus driver situation will surely improve.
Exactly RIGHT !!!!! He been there TOOOOOO LOOONG !!!!!!
Did Vern come from the chicken plant too.?
His ass should have been gone 10 years ago !!!!!
FIRE the Bus Supervisors if you want any Good Drivers !!!! They are the Problem !!!
No Supervisors needed !!!! The Driver is the Supervisor if he is Driving !!!! SOLVED !!!
maybe a route/time keeper supervisor!
Yes, you can’t Drive from the Boardwalk Bldg !!!!!! FACT
Get RID of that Unneeded Ridicolous Bus Control Ctr hidden on the boardwalk where shht head
so called supervisors harrass the drivers of the buses & try to Drive all the buses from their
location sitting on their asses !!!
It is a Danger & is Micro-Management !!! They can’t Drive YOUR bus or see What you see !!!!
Do Away with it or NO Good driver will EVER come back again !!!!
1st to address is Buses since they move more people across the island. You were very short last year and incentives need to be provided not only to new recruits but you legacy force. It would be bad management practice to entice newbies while angering the legacy force.
2nd you need public works personnel. They maintain equipment that cleans the beach, trash removal all over the island but more importantly the south end, inlet and boardwalk from memorial day until labor day. You must have the personnel to dispose of trash, maintain the vehicles to remove the trash and work the entire island on a daily business.
Last is Trams. Trams, truly not needed really a nice to have and without maintenance folks when they break down well no trams. You are ONLY a family friendly town from July 4th until mid Aug. Thats it, embrace the elephant in the room…embrace the suck that has taken decades to happen. Each of you have been on the boardwalk mid week in mid August. Ghost town and no need to run the trams. Waste of resources.
Compromise on trams. Run them friday/saturday/sunday after June Bug Month. No need with moving that trash down the inlet and there are NO families during that time. They have already adjusted or in uptown where we all stay during the summer.
So easy to move forward, you will have some folks feelings hurt but that has never stopped you before.
This makes too much sense but the collective feedback from attendees at at meeting chaired by Atkinson makes no sense at all. They will never achieve any goal by daydreaming about childhood memories riding on the Tram. George Peaks makes more sense than any of these people. The primary goal of transportation IS transportation, not Carnival rides. It is clear to me that that this town doesn’t have the in-house skills to manage their way out of the current dilemma. Given their current record of new hire selection and the success of their Police and Fire Departments, consider a Union. Transportation has been gifted with contributions from the local chicken plants, free lance handymen, and the many ex bartenders around town. It has not and still doesn’t fix the pickle they are in today.
I wouldn’t drive a bus, or boardwalk tram for all the tea in China. The tram is a useless thing of the past. Ride around and look at a sea of people is all it does. Beeps the horn at people in the way. Big pain in the ass if you ask me.
Danger & NOT needed !!! Like the Supervisors !!!!
Better cough up at least $ 25.00 per Hr for the Buses !!!!
Start the pay at $25.00 per hour and a $1,500 sign on bonus will get the hiring done.
Starts a precedent since other local govt jobs “may not” start at $25 or offer bonuses.
A bottoms up review is grossly needed for the OC govt entity. Those at the top will not like it, but something needs to be done to streamline and make gov’t more efficient for…..THE PEOPLE! That means some positions will be identified as pork and required to be realigned or eliminated via attrition.
If you low pay there will be no way!
It ONLY paid 14.00 hr NOT ENOUGH !!!
The tram makes the Town of Ocean City a ton of money each summer. It is a cash cow. The bus loses money. The town needs the trams on the boardwalk to make $$$. In the summer at night the trams are filled to capacity. They have 8 trams and need to have all of them out at night. During the day they aren’t as essential.
Right there you identified an efficiency – trams are not essential during the day. By eliminating daytime ( a specific time would need to be agreed upon, which may takes YEARS) – that reduces cost in salaries and maintenance. Or those folks who do that job would be doing something else prior to “tram time”.
All hands on deck – so to speak.
Yeah, maybe they should station clowns at every bus stop too? How about banning pedestrians from the Boardwalk to make room for more Trams. For sure, the Mayor is a lame duck.
NO amount of Money $$$$$ is enough to put up with the OL-Boy network in Ocean City !!!! See YA
Does ANYONE in OC even know this event is taking place? I was going to forward it to someone there until I realized there is now way to even reach the “committee” since all their contact info is unpublished. Before we know it, we will be talking about how to improve recruiting for the 2023 season.
You are invited to join us for this in-person
Hiring Event at Regional Transportation Agency (RTA) on
Tuesday, January 25th starting at 10am till 4pm
at their location in Annapolis Junction!
Multiple positions are available (Full-time and Part-time work). $3,000 sign on bonus for all new hires.
Register today at: https://signonbonus_with_rta_apply_at_hiringevent.eventbrite.com or with
MWE with Event # 92470.
Attendance will be noted; this may be needed for recording this as a re-employment activity in the Maryland Workforce Exchange.
A Notification of this email was also sent via text message. If you did not receive the text message, please contact your provider and indicate that you are not receiving text from 727-510-6668 or 727-515-1238.
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Whoa!! Boy are these people thinking outside the Box! A $3,000 sign on bonus? It actually sounds like the boys on the West Shore actually have thought things through while the Transportation Committee is more concerned about wasting their time at any hiring event that might produce only 4 hires.
Of course, the Western Shore may not be facing a forthcoming doubling of officials salary following the next election like Ocean City is.
Is Margerittaville destined for the Northern Tram Station at about 14th St? NO WONDER
“some people” want another tram and have no interest in bus TRANSPORTATION needs or requirements. The new hotel will bring 265 rooms of potential new tram riders (profitable or not). Short term gain, long term loss. Oh, well…