HUMBOLDT — Monarch Cement officials entreated U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran to do some magic, pull some strings, or do whatever it takes to procure the company some truck drivers. Lots of them. And fast.
“It doesn’t do us any good to manufacture a product if we can’t move it,” Kent Webber, Monarch’s new chief executive officer, told the senator.
Sen. Moran was in Humboldt Tuesday afternoon during the month-long recess of the Senate. He’ll return to Washington, D.C. next week with an earful from Southeast Kansas.
The prospect of a low unemployment rate is not exactly music to Monarch’s ears, Webber said, at least when it comes to the competitive transport market.
One specific request Monarch officials had of Sen. Moran is to investigate the Department of Transportation stipulation that those with commercial driver’s licenses must be at least 21 in order to cross state lines.
That regulation alone is a barrier to younger applicants.
“They can drive six hours to Garden City, but not three hours to Rogers, Ark.,” the site of the company’s transportation hub, said Doug Sommers, Monarch’s safety director.
Moran said he appreciated the administrators’ “concrete example,” no pun intended, and that as a member of the Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Transportation, such an issue is within his purview.
Webber also stressed the company’s need for masons and electricians, and segued into the need for fast-paced technical programs for high school students.
“We need more people that are trained in trade-specific jobs,” he said.
Moran agreed.
“A lot of what I’m about is trying to keep rural America alive and well. We need to get rid of the mindset that to be a success you need to go away to a university,” he said, adding he has been focused on securing funds to provide technical education in community colleges and high schools.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to reemphasize something that we once knew was important,” Moran said.
Webber also cited his to date fruitless efforts of tapping into what he referred to as military “outs,” those who have recently left the armed services with skills such as driving heavy equipment. Webber said he’s frustrated that those skills are failing to translate into the private sector.
Webber, whose first experience with the industry was as a cement mixer driver, said he’s also worried about a boom economy.
“With unemployment falling, and the demand up for goods and services, that means higher wages for drivers which will inflate the cost of our products,” he said.
But even then, without drivers, the argument is moot.
“We have 50-some line-haul trucks — tractors, trucks and pneumatics — and another 300 in ready mix trucks spread out across 30 plants and if we can’t haul the product, we’re in trouble.
We’re going to be limited not by how much we can produce or sell, but by how much we can transport.”
WHEN asked if he thought more highway construction is in the cards, Webber’s response was an enthusiastic“Yes.”
Sen. Moran was not as confident.
“I can’t tell,” Moran said. “This president ran a campaign on infrastructure, but I’ve not seen any concrete plans. And the issue always is how are we going to pay for it.
“There’s been a mixed message from the Trump administration on whether they would be supportive of raising a fuels tax, for example. I can’t think of a better way to fund new roads than by how much fuel you use, and I wish this would have been part of the discussion on tax reform.
“Kansans in particular have a lot at stake when it comes to infrastructure. When we’re sitting in the middle of the country our ability to get agricultural goods to a global market must be done in an efficient manner. That’s a determining factor whether we’re going to be successful.”
It’s been more than a decade that the federal fuels tax, at 18.2 cents a gallon, has been raised. The state motor fuels tax has remained at 24 cents since 2004, when it was raised 1 cent.
Moran said if a transportation bill were discussed, his goal would be to advocate for the federal stipend to states to include a local component for cities and counties, rather than directed solely to a state’s highway transportation department.
“Local communities need more say-so on how those monies should be spent,” he said.
COLE Herder, city administrator of Humboldt, and Nobby Davis, Humboldt mayor, weighed into the discussion by lamenting the high cost of maintaining public services.
“We get the same amount of money every year, but our costs have escalated 300 percent,” Davis said.
Mounting infrastructure needs have really hit Humboldt, Herder said.
“We have a $6.2 million sewer rebuild ahead of us. Hopefully it will last us 75 years, but it’s been going downhill for the last 100 years,” he said, “and unfortunately, municipalities aren’t very good at saving money,” for future projects.
“We’re looking at a water study right now where I’m expecting a $2 million price tag for upgrades. Even as we’ve maintained, we’re falling behind new standards.
“And just last week, my sewer plant department head told me he doesn’t know if we’re going to meet discharge regulations because of new regulations. We can’t just raise the price of utilities,” he said.
“You don’t have enough ratepayers,” Moran interjected. “In a town your size, you can’t raise rates sufficiently to meet regulations for clean water and sewer disposal.”
Herder said, “I’ve looked at all the numbers. We’re at the top end for property tax and utilities, and we’re not done yet.”
Moran had some encouraging words about “a couple of pots of money,” that Humboldt and other small, rural towns could investigate.
Herder ended the discussion with the good news that Murphy Tractor & Equipment Co., a subsidiary of John Deere, has plans to locate a service center northeast of town. Herder gave Webber the credit for being the linchpin in bringing Murphey to Humboldt. “I just helped connect the dots,” he said in a conversation this morning of his role as city administrator.
The service center will be situated in a hoped-for industrial park with the help of a $336,250 grant from the Economic Development Administration. Allen County commissioners have pledged to match that funding, which will be used to extend utilities to the site.
“If everything goes right, the service center will be open by year’s end,” Herder said, noting the long process in securing the federal funding.
That development and the recent opening of Opie’s Restaurant and downtown improvements have “created a buzz in the people,” Mayor Davis said.
PHOTO: U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, right, addresses a group of Monarch Cement employees Tuesday at the Humboldt plant. Listening to his comments are, from left, Sam Budreau, corporate director of human resources, Walter Wulf Jr., former president and current Board of Directors chairman for Monarch, and Zoey Rinehart, a Humboldt High School student. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Monarch hosts Sen. Moran
