The Highways and Transportation Commission today elected not to participate in the retirement incentive plan passed by the legislature.

MoDOT can’t afford the additional job losses, commissioners decided. The department has already reduced its workforce by about 300 over the past two years. Possibly losing many more would have jeopardized our ability to meet our commitments, and created an impossible workload on remaining employees.

The plan would have offered some eligible employees medical insurance at lower, active employee premiums for either five years or until eligible for Medicare, whichever comes first. The incentive would have applied to employees eligible for retirement between February 1, 2003, and January 1, 2004, and actually retire by September 1 of this year. The legislation required that only 25 percent of the vacancies created by retirement be filled, resulting in some cost savings to the agency.

MoDOT estimates about 600 employees would have been eligible, and many of them may have taken the opportunity to retire. And three-quarters of those vacancies could not have been filled.

The commission has helped with employee insurance premiums by investing nearly $13 million over the past three years to keep most rates the same, while premiums for other agencies have risen greatly. While many other agencies are offering this retirement incentive to their employees, MoDOT has already been more aggressive than most in reducing its workforce. We can’t afford a significant number of additional job losses and still do the work.