An Oregon Department of Transportation snowplow clears a roadway in Baker County.

Six employees from Baker County are among the 483 Oregon Department of Transportation workers who were told this week they will be laid off by July 31 because the Oregon Legislature failed to pass a transportation spending bill during the session that ended in late June.

All six of the employees from Baker County are transportation maintenance specialist 2 positions, said Kacey Davey, an ODOT public information officer.

Those workers do a variety of tasks, including driving snowplows and maintaining highways, bridges and signs, according to an ODOT job description.

About half of ODOT’s roughly 5,000 workers are represented by a union. The largest is the Service Employees International Union.

Davey said layoffs comply with union contracts, which are “designed to preserve the most senior employees.”

In addition, union workers who have a layoff notice “have the right to move into other positions, both vacant and filled, following specific processes. This means the impacts to specific regions, programs and services may not be fully known for several months.”

Davey said the layoffs will result in reduced maintenance on highways, including during winter.

“As winter approaches, the public can expect slower snow and ice removal, particularly in mountainous areas,” Davey wrote in an email to the Baker City Herald on Tuesday, July 8. “Deicing treatments will be scaled back, increasing the risk of icy roads and dangerous driving conditions. We are committed to maintaining safety and essential services with the resources we have, but there will be fewer people, fewer services and less capacity to respond. Oregon’s travelers will soon experience a less reliable transportation system year-round.”

A transportation maintenance specialist 2 from Baker County who received a layoff notice on Monday, July 7, and requested anonymity, said the layoffs, unless there’s a change, will have a major effect on travel through the Blue Mountains this winter.

“It’s going to be ugly,” the employee said.

In addition to effects on Interstate 84, the region’s main arterial which already closes several times each winter, secondary routes such as Highway 245 over Dooley Mountain, the steep, winding pass south of Baker City, could quickly become impassable during a blizzard without regular plowing, the employee said.

The employee said the loss of six maintenance specialists in Baker County amounts to 30% to 40% of the ODOT workforce in the county.

Salaries for transportation maintenance specialist 2 range from $50,436 to $74,940, depending on the union contract and length of employment.

The largest number of layoff notices – 159 statewide — went to transportation maintenance specialists.

ODOT also plans to close maintenance stations in Mitchell and Condon, among the dozen statewide slated for closure.

ODOT has maintenance stations in Baker City and in Richland, neither of which will be closed.

In addition to laying off workers, ODOT canceled three chip-sealing projects scheduled to start July 7 in Northeastern Oregon.

Those were planned for sections of Highway 26 in Grant County, and Highways 203-A and 237-A in Union County.

Davey said those projects were slated to be done by ODOT employees, not contractors.

Layoff notice totals elsewhere in ODOT’s Region 5, which includes these counties: Morrow, Umatilla, Wheeler, Grant, Wallowa, Union, Baker, Malheur and Harney.

Umatilla County: 12

11 transportation maintenance specialist 2

1 office specialist 2

Union County: 10

1 construction project manager 2

1 environmental program manager 2

1 information systems specialist 6

7 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Wallowa County: 1

1 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Grant County: 4

4 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Malheur County: 7

7 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Morrow County: 2

2 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Wheeler County: 11

2 transportation maintenance coordinator

9 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Harney County: 4

1 heavy equipment technician 2

1 transportation maintenance specialist 1

2 transportation maintenance specialist 2

Elsewhere in Oregon

The layoff list includes 160 employees in Marion County, where ODOT has its headquarters. Most are positions other than maintenance specialists.

The list includes:

• 48 information systems specialists
• 26 operations and policy analysts
• 9 administrative specialists
• 8 engineering specialists
• 5 program analysts
• 3 procurement and contract specialists
• 3 human resource analysts
• 4 fiscal analysts
• 4 executive support specialists

• 2 public affairs specialists
• 2 research analysts

A total of 59 ODOT employees are slated to lose their jobs in Multnomah County, which is the most populous of Oregon’s 36 counties but the smallest in size, at 435 square miles. Baker County covers almost 3,100 square miles.

Layoffs in Multnomah County include 14 transportation maintenance specialists, 12 engineering specialists and three professional engineers.