The state has responded to Island road maintenance concerns in a rather unusual way: it wants to hand the work over to the Vineyard.

At a meeting Wednesday night, Skip McCourt, district highway director for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT), met with town officials to persuade them to take over the routine maintenance of state roads in their jurisdiction.

The state currently employs two DOT workers on the Island and contracts much of its work to off-Island contractors in a process that Mr. McCourt characterized as clumsy and bureaucratic.

“We’re not looking at this from a pure sense of, gee how can the state save money?” said Mr. McCourt, “Because we don’t really envision that it’s going to be a money-saving venture, but it could definitely improve the efficiency and ultimately the customer service for the people that are actually using the state highways.”

The state enjoys a similar hands-off agreement with Nantucket which maintains its own 6.5 miles of state highway and is reimbursed by the state.

“It’s worked very well for us [on Nantucket],” said Rep. Tim Madden, who joined the meeting by speaker phone. “The idea is to give the Island more control over their own towns.”

The Vineyard has about 35 miles of state roads throughout its six towns, including Chappaquiddick.

On Island the DOT’s two employees are required to report to district headquarters in Taunton, which then eventually contracts statewide for Island work.

“I’m not sure that’s the most efficient way to handle things,” said Mr. McCourt, “In fact I’m pretty much convinced that it it’s not. By the time something reaches Taunton it probably should have already been addressed at the local level.”

Tisbury selectman Jeff Kristal agreed, citing poor response times from the state during the year.

“We were writing e-mails in January of this year to the state saying that our roads were going to need striping,” he said, adding: “Then when Oak Bluffs got all the striping for their new roadwork we were expecting to see the state come in right after, and then we saw them getting on a boat and leaving. We didn’t get our striping done until July. I think that if the towns took over a contract like this we could be more responsive to the needs of our community.”

Not all towns were sold on the proposal. West Tisbury town administrator Jennifer Rand said her town is ill-equipped to maintain its current roadways much less nine miles of additional state highway.

“In order for us to do that it would fundamentally change the way we do business in West Tisbury,” she said. “Currently we have a stipended highway superintendent position and one employee and one truck. We contract out for everything except for the most basic of work because we have no staff, no equipment and no building.”

Ms. Rand said West Tisbury would have to put all road work out to bid, something it is also ill-equipped to do.

“We don’t have an engineer or the ability to design those bid specs,” she said. “We could hire one to write them because I’m not qualified to, or we’d have to create a new department. The costs of that would be far greater than the cost of work. It would cost an enormous amount for West Tisbury to take that on.”

Edgartown selectman Arthur Smadbeck shared similar concerns.

“Our highway department would have to contract this out because we don’t have the staff,” he said. “If we did, we’d have to know that, a: the work’s going to get done, and b: the state’s going to pay for it. Otherwise it really doesn’t make sense for us to take this on.”

Mr. McCourt explained that his department would pro-rate each town’s responsibility based on its road mileage and that it would be reimbursed for that amount. If a town spent above what the state determines is appropriate it would be responsible for the difference.

“It concerns me because it seems like there’s an assumption of risk on the town’s part,” said Ms. Rand.

Mr. McCourt said Nantucket faces little risk because the Island knows what amount of work the state expects from it. He said an Island-wide consortium may work better for the Vineyard as it could benefit from economies of scale when putting road work out to bid.

“We’re here to try and work together to solve some of these problems,” he said. “For too long we’ve been seen as being off-Island or being detached. We can’t afford to do that anymore. We need to be working hand in glove with the communities.”

Mr. Madden echoed the sentiment. “It’s supposed to be a positive thing,” he said. “If it’s not we’ll leave it as it is, but it would be much better if towns had local control.”