So there was shock and awe after we told you that a Los Angeles city firefighter made more than a half-million dollars in overtime alone last year. Let’s continue our illuminating trek through public pay data by looking at California’s county workers.
Surprise! We find more evidence that something’s awry with local governments’ management of public safety overtime. Which is to say, they spend tremendous heaping gobs on it, particularly for firefighters, and manipulation may be at work.
Without further ado: The county worker with the fattest overtime check in all of California was an Alameda County fire captain, who clocked overtime worth $417,159 (for total wages of $594,490) last year.
Next up: a Los Angeles County fire captain, with overtime of $413,380 and total wages of $578,099.
All told, California’s 58 counties spent more than $2 billion on overtime in 2022, the overwhelming majority for public safety shifts (which more than tripled some workers’ annual pay). That’s double the amount of overtime counties paid a decade earlier, in 2012.
Back then, only 102 workers made overtime of at least $100,000.
In 2022, a stunning 1,849 workers did.
In 2012, only 2,856 workers made overtime of at least $50,000.
In 2022, a stunning 9,219 workers did.
Why does it matter?
“Certainly, fatigue and overexertion can lead to unforeseen incidents during a shift’s overtime hours,” said Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who called the issue an important one.
“We want to ensure that long shifts do not negatively affect the public or our Sheriff’s employees, who play an important role in our community’s safety.”
We’ll call your attention to the change in precisely who collects the most overtime, which has markedly shifted over the years.
‘Disconcerting tricks’?
A decade ago, psychiatrists, doctors and nurses nabbed most of the top overtime spots for California’s county governments (counties run vast health systems as well as…
Read the full article here
