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The Maine State Ferry Service is coming under fire for proposing a change in where its boats dock at night, even as it has made progress at resolving other sources of frustration for the island communities that it serves: namely, the staffing shortages and mechanical breakdowns that contributed to many trip cancellations this year.
Since the ferry service’s inception in the 1950s, many of its boats have spent the night at their respective islands’ ports off the midcoast and Hancock County, which has helped islanders with medical emergencies get quickly transported to hospitals on the mainland.
But as part of a broader set of changes that are planned in the coming years, the Maine Department of Transportation has raised the possibility of docking all of its ferries overnight on the mainland and instead providing funds for new emergency boats to serve the islands at night.
While the ferry service has not made any final decisions, it says that such a change would help it to cut costs, operate more reliably and attract more workers, who wouldn’t have to spend the nights away from their mainland homes.
However, union officials and residents of some island communities are concerned by the concept, arguing that it could create new barriers to emergency medical care and potentially deter workers from joining the service. Officials from Islesboro and North Haven have sent letters to the service sharing their frustration.
“We have grave reservations as to the process and the substance of this scheme. Substantively, this proposal makes many major changes to the current policies that raise significant and important public safety issues,” Islesboro Town Manager Janet Anderson said in her letter. “Frankly, we expect better than this type of treatment from the executive branch of our state government and find this very disappointing.”
Beyond the debate over where the ferries should dock at night, it has already been a busy year for the service.
It continues to update its fleet, after maintenance issues on some of its older ferries contributed to trip cancellations in the last year. That has included the addition of a new boat on the Matinicus route and plans for a hybrid-electric ferry that will join the fleet next spring. Maine is also closing bids this month for a ferry capable of fully electric operations to take over the Islesboro route in the next three to five years, according to William Geary, the director of the Maine State Ferry Service.
“Last year, unfortunately, we had three vessels out at one time, but we put the money in to make sure that we have safe, reliable ferries for our passengers,” Geary said.
To remedy the shortage of ferry workers, Maine DOT enacted fare increases that have helped it hike wages and hired an out-of-state staffing contractor, Seaward Services, to boost personnel in the interim. While the first Seaward contract was awarded on an emergency basis, the agency issued a request for proposals before hiring the company again for 2025, Geary said.
However, the hiring of Seaward has created some ongoing friction with the ferry service’s regular employees, who fear that it could put the service on the path toward privatization.
On Dec. 2, the union that represents them, the Maine Service Employees Association, sent a letter co-signed by 51 lawmakers asking the state attorney general to scrutinize Maine DOT’s contracting out of ferry labor in recent years.
But Geary pushed back on those concerns. He said that the service has filled seven regular positions since it entered the first contract with Seaward earlier this year, and it hasn’t needed to use any of the contractor’s workers since Dec. 9.
Various pay increases have helped the service to bring in more employees, including raises in January and July for all state workers, and higher overtime rates for captains and crew members.
However, with at least five vacancies remaining in the service’s ranks, Geary said that Seaward has helped to improve the service’s reliability, completing 97.5 percent of scheduled trips outside weather cancellations, and that the contractor will continue to be an important backstop.
“This is not, at all, a step towards privatizing the ferry service,” Geary said. “This is what was being asked of us, if not demanded from us, from the islanders to get the boats running.”
Geary also asserted that the proposal to eventually dock ferries on the mainland could help attract new ferry workers. Those workers must now stay in the crew quarters on the islands while they’re working, separating them from home and families for a week at a time, while also forcing the service to pay for the costs of those quarters.
But that proposal could become another flashpoint.
Anderson, the Islesboro town manager, raised specific concerns about it in her letter to Maine DOT Commissioner Bruce van Note.
Besides criticizing what she viewed as a lack of a communication from the agency, she argued that it can sometimes be important for island residents requiring emergency medical attention to receive constant care on their way to the hospital, which ambulance crews can provide on a ferry ride back to the mainland, but which would be harder to offer if island taxis or Life Flight helicopters have to play more of a role.
Geary suggested that emergency vessels could berth at the islands overnight instead of the ferries, but Anderson said in the letter that an island-wide EMS system could cost some $7.5 million to start and operate, including $5 million to purchase a vessel.
Peter Drury, a former ferry captain who lives on Vinalhaven and is involved with the union representing ferry workers, challenged the notion that berthing ferries on the mainland could help attract new staff. He noted that many service employees live far from the ferry terminals and suggested that some of them would be reluctant to move closer if their crew accommodations on the islands were eliminated.
“I think that the department is just failing to acknowledge the realities of what their employee pool looks like, and they just do not understand how mariners approach their occupation,” Drury said.
While Geary acknowledged that workers would have to relocate if the change happens, he thinks it would help to attract more employees who would want to be home with their families every night.
On a larger level, he noted that medical care is not the ferry service’s core mission, but he said the agency will give the concept more consideration before it makes any final decisions.
Jules Walkup is a Report for America corps member. Additional support for this reporting is provided by BDN readers.
