Buffalo has submitted its annual snow plan, but a shortage of mechanics threatens to keep snow plows off the streets when they break down.
The city suffered the same problem last winter. Back in February, Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan revealed the city was down to just 14 working snow plows out of 36. Ryan blamed a combination of factors, including a lack of investment by previous administrations along with struggling to hire enough mechanics to fix the aging fleet.
"One of the reasons we're down so low is the city stopped properly paying its mechanics," the mayor said at the time.
Eight months later, I visited the Broadway Barns to see how the city is preparing for the upcoming winter. I discovered recruiting mechanics is still a problem.
There are just 12 mechanics to look after vehicles citywide says Kevin Savage, the city's superintendent of fleet maintenance.
"Eight mechanics in this garage, two in police and two in fire," Savage said.
Savage remembers when the shop was nearly twice as staffed, estimating there were around 22 mechanics back in 2009 when he first started working at the Broadway Barns.
This year, the city has budgeted for close to that number 20 mechanics. Pay remains a factor in the challenge to fill those positions, according to Deputy Mayor Benjamin Swanekamp.
"Our pay's not competitive," Swanekamp said. "We included raises in the budget, but we're still negotiating with the union to try to get them to effectuate those."
The average annual salary for an auto mechanic in the Buffalo area is around $53,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly half of the city's auto mechanic jobs paid below that under last year's budget. The raises in the Ryan administration's current budget bring the majority of those auto mechanic positions above that salary.
Heading into winter understaffed, Savage said his crew is making do.
"We got a lot of hard-working guys who get the job done every day. We do the best we can with what we have," Savage said.
For now, getting to full strength remains the aim for the Ryan administration.
"Getting fully staffed is a huge goal for us," Swanekamp said.
In the meantime, the city has six new snow plows on order to try to mitigate the number of breakdowns. The deputy mayor says they should arrive at some point this winter.
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