Police and Fire Department employees ranked among seven of the 10 best-paid city workers in Boston, earning substantially more than Mayor Thomas M. Menino, payroll records released Tuesday show.
Andrew O’Halloran, a chief of field services for the Fire Department, made $280,120. Boston police Lieutenant Luis A. Cruz was the highest paid officer, at $266,971. Police officers, who occupied six of the 10 top slots, can greatly supplement their base pay with overtime, details and Quinn bill money, which comes from a 1970s law that provides incentive pay for earning college degrees.
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Greatly Supplement their pay? Who wants a tired police officer coming to their aid? Not me. The whole system stinks.
If the cops weren't doing details or overtime they would be doing another side job.They have a 90 hour maximum work week, not unlike anyone in the private sector. How many hours do Emergency Room doctors work in a week.
That is some serious coin. The teacher making 30 grand must be probationary and could have been let go for any reason the first three years without recourse. The suit must have involved sexual harassment of some kind or worse because probationary teachers are generally fired easily. The one making 100k is a veteran with many years of experience, but this probably also involves harassment of some sort or they tried to fire the person when it was not warranted. You try to live in Boston on 30k because it takes you a long time to get to that 100k...many towns top out in the70's with a Ph.D.
Let's put in a residency requirement for these so-called civil servants. They can all buy mansions on Beacon Hill. The duck boat tours can then show the tourists where Boston civil servants live. That would really top off this ridiculous situation. Ugh...
There already is a residency requirement for most Boston city employees (except teachers). They're required to live in the city for the first 10 years, although I can't say for certain that that is the exact rule in all cases. And some long-time employees were grandfathered when the requirement went into place.
These stories never go to the next level. For example, how can a public safety worker who more than doubles their pay through overtime and details log so many hours and still be considered fit t function? It would be great if they let us in on the secret to such supernatural abilities. Perhaps so much overtime is not only due to staffing levels, but also to scheduling inefficiencies. How do union rules that permit schedule swapping that serves to drive up costs? It would be interesting to know what portion of employees hold a second job that may have been the true source of their injury. The public safety union contracts are complicated. They include work rules that have huge impacts on costs.
Organized theft by unions and their accomplice politicians.
The Globe should lay out who actually makes what, not throwing out the exception to the rule like a Lieutenant Detective that makes over $200,000. Boston patrolmen make $15,000 a year less than Boston firefighters. They make $20,000 a year less than State Troopers. Boston cops lost half of their Quinn Bill pay when Deval stopped funding the State's side. He did not, however, cut any of the State Police Quinn Bill, that is still fully funded. Boston cops get paid less than Quincy cops, Brookline cops and Cambridge cops but do a far more dangerous job day in and day out.
The Quinn bill is a dinosaur that was doled out stupidly when times were good. Deval should have cut the whole thing and not left cities and towns on the hook. No one gets bonus pay for the rest of their career because they went to school. If the job doesn't pay well enough, don't take it, but don't complain that you only make $80k a year, there is a line behind you of people who would gladly take your place. Where are your numbers? You are just saying how much less than others, but didn't put the base because it is shameful to complain when others are struggling through this recession.
Deval couldn't cut the whole thing. The law states the Cities and towns will pay half. People do get extra pay for higher degrees, it's built into their salaries.
"3,700 city employees earned $100,000 or more"..............out of 16,000 employees...nearly 25% of Boston public workers earn double the median income of the average American. Combine this fact with pension and health benefits found NOWHERE in the private sector and you have a pretty good picture of how rich (yes RICH) life is in the public sector these days. Thanks to the Globe for publishing these numbers but WHERE IS THE CONTEXT? How does Boston compare to other cities? As noted above, how does Boston's public employee compensation compare to the average, TOTAL, compensation per worker in the local private sector? The number of employees, the pay and the benefits for city workers is completely out of control and unsustainable. The sooner taxpayers understand this, the better as Boston will certainly end up no different than Central Falls, Rhode Island in the near future. Boston city employees and pensioners who have been "promised" this outsized level of compensation by endless Democrat politicians will have no one but Democrats to blame when the Golden Goose of the private sector is wrung dry through such profligacy.
Whether in the public or private sector, paying out such overtime costs seem obscene when so many people are looking for decent jobs.
It is a lot cheaper to pay OT than to hire new employees. Are you saying that Cities and towns should drastically increase employee costs in order to lower the unemployment rate?
It's funny how the Globe does not publish their own overpaid salaries, and the perks they have, but instead they go after people that do work for a living and make a difference in life. I challenge you people up in the Globe to publish every single person that works up there and their salaries to compare with the city workers, if you dont like your pay then come and work for the city.....LOL