Some Contra Costa County employees are raking in overtime at an alarming rate. The abuse is limited to a small select group of around 350 out of 11,000 employees listed in County payroll document obtained by Halfway To Concord.
About ten percent of County employees, 1020, received overtime according to 2008-09 payroll records
Of those, 358 received more than $30,000 in overtime. Mostly fire, sheriffs, and, curiously nurses.
Of those, 19 make as much or more in overtime as their salary. For instance, one Fire Engineer is salaried at 97,050 per year, but makes an additional $98,548 in overtime. The top overtime producer as percentage of salary was a Fire Engineer with a stated salary of $88,075 who made an additional $127,648.72 in overtime!
The looting of the County payroll is not limited to abuse by public safety employees, either. Several registered nurses employed by the Health Services Department are salaried at $58,467, $44,917, and $51,324 while “earning” an additional $79,211, $50,521, $57,705, respectively. As a percentage of income each was making 135, 125, and 124 percent of their salary in overtime.
How such massive overtime could be healthy for county employees, let alone not impact patient safety, is a wonder. How a department manager could either not figure out schedules better, or approve or turn a blind eye to such abuse is mind boggling.
Worse, there are probably non-safety employees counting down the days to retirement sitting around collecting overtime only to boost their last year’s salary so they can push their retirement pay into the stratosphere at taxpayer expense.
Call your Supervisor today to ask them to stop this abuse.
Tell your Supervisor to stop making chintzy deals with County employees and crowing about it as it’s a big deal when abuse like this goes unchecked and the increasing inability to fund employee and retirement benefits (OPEB) have become unmanageable.
County officials did not return our e-mails asking for some explanation to these figures.
It’s even worse at the State level!
What I don’t get is why some employees get so much overtime while the 10,700 do not? Can’t the workforce me managed more effectively than this? How can 300 some employees be called on so much? Why are they so special? Is it because it is their turn to retire?
What’s the reason for this? It just doesn’t make sense.
SEE XLS BELOW OR CLICK DOWNLOAD BUTTON
FILE REPRESENTS THOSE MAKING ANY OVERTIME IN 2008-09
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Dog. Your are correct about OT and pensions. Yet with 11,000 workers with pension and benefit costs are already available you don’t need to hire more, that’s just the point. There’s no reason for these outrageous examples. But nurses and public safety have so many labor side deals (thanks to former HR Manager) that lock in idiotic overtime guarantees forcing taxpayers to underwrite this high level of systemic abuse without recourse because of Supes not wanting to piss of the unions so they can stay in- or run for higher office.
It is cheaper to pay overtime then to employee more workers, because of high benefit and retirement costs. Overtime is not counted in any retirement formula. You can check the retirement board website or call them if you don’t believe this.
Don’t blame the employees, it’s management who authorize overtime and the Board of Supervisors who approve the budgets. Overtime is a useful management tool. However, when you have large numbers of firefighters earning over $100,000 in overtime, there should be a serious review of staffing practices.
There are 164 people making over $50,000 in overtime.
There are 45 making over $75,000 in overtime. One is a nurse, and 44 are firefighters. The highest overtime earner was a fire captain with $148,328 in overtime on top of a salary $109,403 plus benefits.