Posted on 04/22/2024 12:40:52 PM PDT by Angelino97
Watchdogs have slammed California local government for spending billions in overtime pay – with police officers, firefighters, linemen and utility workers earning up to $792,000 in a single year.
Short staffing, poor planning, generous union deals and expensive hiring costs all contribute to civil servants relying heavily on overtime, experts told DailyMail.com.
It has given frontline workers a golden opportunity to earn several million dollars since 2019. But tax watchdogs say it is a raw deal for the taxpayer.
Senior Los Angeles fire captain Jason Getchius had a salary of $169,764 in 2022, the latest figures provided by the city. But by racking up $502,681 in overtime pay, he was able to earn an eye-popping total of $792,467.
San Francisco sheriff's lieutenant Ronald Terry had a salary of $179,676. With $374,503 in overtime pay, he earned a total of $738,432 in 2022.
Lington Gordon, an electric crew foreman in Santa Clara, made $703,621 with $363,013 overtime, and Oakland police sergeant Timothy Dolan earned $699,345 with $376,998 overtime.
Since 2019, Dolan has earned almost $2.3 million and Gordon $2,231,958.
The figures come from the California State Controller and the charity Transparency California, which compiles salary data on State workers.
Experts say the workers have not done anything wrong, and are merely maximizing their income from local government bosses who have failed to hire enough people.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
They have to take care of their hired muscle and hired guns...All the kings men...
Otherwise, they just might turn on them.
Ingress is making more on the Ukraine war including MTG. They have been revealed as corruptocrats. Shocking how many MAGA republicans are on the take.
Linemen and utility workers arent ‘civil servants’.
In the FL county where I worked in the 80s, the EMS workers and firefighters were by far the highest paid county employees. They typically worked 24 hours a day for 7 days. Anything over 8 hours/day was overtime, so they got regular pay, plus 16 hours of overtime every day. I was data processing director for the Clerk of The Courts and pretty well paid, but those guys came out way ahead of me.
That’s pretty close to what the illegals are make’n.
It proves that that writer of the article needs to check his math....No doubt the entire matter in CA is out of control including journalism...
Even without the overtime some of these salaries seem a little excessive. Over $300K/yr for a police sergeant? I don’t know - maybe I’ve just been out of the labor market too long to know if this is an appropriate salary or not.
Whoops - maybe math is different in the UK....
Time to demand raises. Think like a leftist bureaucrat.
Heroes one and all. Nothing is enough for our brave selfless public servants.
How is this possible? No sleep for an entire week?
Yep! They are gaming the system because they can. I know many cops and firemen and they all go out with disabilities and work max overtime before they retire. I know 1 fireman who retired 30+ years ago and gets a 5% raise every year. They’re laughing all the way to the bank!
I don’t know about these particular cases, but it is a well established trick to do this in the last year before retirement to spike the pension at stratospheric levels. This requires the collusion of supervisors, but since they are all in on the scam, collusion is routine. The federal formula is one percent of an employee’s high three. In Cali, unless it’s been changed recently, it’s based on the highest single year of service, and iirc, it’s higher than one percent.
They don’t work 24/7 they are at the station 24/7. Just a bunch of guys hanging out at the station waiting for emergency calls.
Well, brave in any event. Maybe not so selfless.
THAT is normal structure for firemen.
They don’t appear to be earning that money.
I know a deputy who works in a remote section of the county and is on call 24 hours a day. He is the only law enforcement in that area. Backup is a minimum of 45 minutes away, usually it’s over an hour. He earns every penny of the $400k he made.
If I was there I be looking for a job.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.