Teri Sforza Staff Columnist, Orange County Register
Several California firefighters managed to triple their base salaries by working tons of overtime last year, according to competing data on city worker pay released Monday by the state controller and the California Policy Center.
The phenomenon of rocketing overtime, according to the reports, hit its apex in Richmond, where one city firefighter had base pay of $113,892 and overtime of $279,105. His total compensation in 2013, including the value of health and pension benefits: $508,893.
“The overtime certainly is insane,” said Robert Fellner, project manager for the conservative-leaning center’s project, Transparent California. “The system wasn’t designed to be most beneficial to the taxpayer, and it’s definitely being exploited. There are certainly ways to minimize that.”
The pattern was repeated statewide to varying degrees, with one local firefighter doubling his base pay with overtime. Huntington Beach Fire Captain Darren Newton had base pay of $110,866, overtime of $127,866 and total compensation (including other pay and benefits) of $361,382.
While Orange County cities have ranked high on best-paid lists in years past – former Buena Park City Manager Rick Warsinski was No. 1 in 2012, with total comp of $545,394 – they failed to crack the Top 60 this year, according to Transparent California.
Laguna Hills City Manager Bruce Channing was No. 1 in the county, with total pay and benefits worth $383,082. That put him at No. 62 statewide, out of nearly 215,000 workers.
The No. 1 spot belonged to Susan Loftus, then-city manager of San Mateo, with total comp of $567,106.
Her payout – as well as that of Warsinski and many others who landed atop the list – was bulked up by cashing out unused sick, vacation and other leave time that had accumulated over decades. The unused leave is paid out at the worker’s last, and usually highest, rate of pay, even if it was earned when the pay rate was much lower.
The Top 50 list includes several workers from recently bankrupt and financially struggling cities, including Vallejo and Mountain View.
But O.C.’s failure to crack the upper echelons may not reflect a sobering of local compensation packages as much as it reflects how much compensation is increasing elsewhere.
“There’s a very clear trend: Public pay continues to rise,” said Fellner of Transparent California. “Over the past 10 years in the private sector, there have been up years and down years and years of stagnation. People should ask why public sector employees are almost always seeing their pay go up, while the people who pay for them aren’t.”
Municipal workers counter that they have endured many cuts and job reductions since the recession, have forgone raises and are kicking in more for retirement and medical benefits than ever before. Indeed, the number of city positions reported to the controller dropped from 327,700 in 2009 to 279,000 last year.
The dueling city pay databases have slightly different takes on the information. While the state controller lists all city positions, but only by job title, and includes wages subject to Medicare taxes, Transparent California drops off workers who earn less than $25,000 a year, includes all wages and lists employee names, enraging some.
The controller’s data showed that cities paid total wages of $17.2 billion last year. They paid $2.2 billion for the required employer’s portion of retirement costs. In addition, they paid $375.6 million to cover their workers’ portion of retirement contributions, even as they’re asking workers to kick in more of that themselves.
City overtime pay totaled $1.37 billion, and lump-sum pay was $302.9 million.
The controller also posted pay data for about 332,000 county workers on Monday.
Former Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Hunt was officially the best-paid county government worker in California last year, with compensation of $1.25 million – even though he didn’t actually work for the county.
Hunt, you may recall, ran against then-Sheriff Mike Carona in 2006. Carona won, Hunt was demoted and endured what a judge later branded a campaign of retaliation and intimidation, with Carona’s conduct “egregious and despicable.” Hunt sued, and Orange County agreed to settle the case last year with reinstatement to his former rank and back pay.
That settlement amounted to a $742,153 lump payment, and retirement and health benefits payments of $510,388, according to the data.
The only other county earners in the million-dollar range in all of California were four contract physicians for Kern Medical Center.
See the controller’s new data for your city or county at publicpay.ca.gov. See Transparent California’s by-the-names data at transparentcalifornia.com.