Thursday, September 07, 2006
Mo Money... 10-4 !
Good Afternoon. I believe the following will interest all of the Blah-g's readers... so I will get right tuit !
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Overtime -- and then some
By Rich Cholodofsky
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Michael Kalp, a 911 dispatcher with a salary of about $33,000 a year, is among the highest paid Westmoreland County employees.
That's because Kalp nearly tripled his salary last year by working overtime, earning almost $90,000 in base pay and overtime, according to a Tribune-Review analysis of county payroll records.
And Kalp is not alone. Dispatchers in the 911 center, nurses at Westmoreland Manor and guards at the county jail over the last three years have collected more than $6.1 million in overtime since 1994.
Last year, Kalp earned more than his boss, Public Safety Director Rich Matason. With his overtime, he collected more than each of the three county commissioners, who earn about $60,000 a year.
Only three county workers -- District Attorney John Peck, Chief Detective Michael Brajdich and Computer Information Systems Director Phil Svesnik -- earned more than Kalp in 2005.
Timothy O'Donnell has worked as a dispatcher for the last six years. The 54-year-old husband and father of three from Hempfield Township said he relies on overtime to pay his bills.
O'Donnell nearly doubled his $28,000 salary and last year pulled down more than $23,000 in overtime. He estimated he worked more than 1,200 extra hours last year.
"You do it to make a living. You can't survive on what the county pays you for a straight shift. I'm married, my wife doesn't work and I have three kids. I couldn't pay the mortgage without overtime," O'Donnell said.
In all, the county's overtime budget has steadily grown each of the last three years and is expected to top $3 million by the end of this year.
Since 2004, county taxpayers have spent more than $7.6 million in overtime payments to workers, a figure that reflects 2 mills of property taxes for each average homeowner. That translates to about $40 per county taxpayer.
It's a necessary and unavoidable expense, county officials say.
"Unfortunately, we have a lot of 24-hour-a-day operations around here," said Commissioner Tom Balya. "We can't leave posts unmanned, especially at 911, the prison and the nursing home. It just doesn't work that way."
Those three departments account for 81 percent of the county's overtime.
Department heads insist that overtime has become the only available method to ensure the vital functions of the county government are fully manned at all times.
Matason said he requires a full complement of 52 dispatchers to man 10-person shifts around the clock. For the last year, he has averaged just 46 dispatchers on the payroll.
"We have to maintain a certain level of staffing. It's just a matter of feeding the requirement," Matason said.
Training classes were conducted earlier this year, and more dispatchers are expected to be on the job by the end of 2006, he said.
Nursing shortages have plagued the Manor for the last several years. So much so that administrators have waived residency requirements for nurses to help new recruits.
Last month, the county officials authorized the Manor to contract with an outside agency to provide temporary nurses to ease the overtime burden on existing staff.
The Manor topped the list over the last two-and-a-half years in overtime expenses, at more than $3.3 million.
Overtime also has been increasing at the prison, where Warden John Walton attributed the growing employee costs to sick leave and holidays, leaving gaps in staffing levels that require some guards to work overtime.
"Certain individuals here will work it every time you call them. For a lot of guys with kids in college, it's a good thing. They need the money," Walton said. "It's not feasible to cut overtime."
County officials also appear in no hurry to curtail overtime costs, saying it is just the cost of running around-the-clock services.
"I'm never comfortable with overtime, but a reasonable expectation is that our managers are looking at personnel costs. I'm sure we have not been ignoring it," said Commissioner Phil Light.
Light said that in many cases it is cheaper for the county to just pay overtime than put on additional staff, for which health benefits and payments into the pension plan would increase the county's costs.
And for employees such as O'Donnell, overtime is a necessary tradeoff to avoid financial hardship and making ends meet.
"My family and home life suffers because I work most of my scheduled days off, and I work many 15-hour shifts. It doesn't allow you to have an outside social life," O'Donnell said.
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I only have twenty seven comments concerning the above article but I will limit it to just one.
"WOW"
In other news...
A while back I wrote that Bill Reese was going to be hired by the county to replace Bob Ceroni, 911's Deputy Director. Bill is more than qualified to hold any position at OUR 911 Center including Matason's Director Position however the Blah-ger has learned that when it came time to replace the retiring Ceroni, 911 bypassed Bill's very qualifing resume to hire Compissioner Phil Light's secretary's husband !
HOLY MONKEY PITS, talk about keeping it in the family !
Chris Tantlinger, who lives in the same area as Phil Light and who has no experience in running a 911 center, nor has any experience with HAZMAT was basically handed this job that Bill Reese should have gotten. It's that enough to make you throw up your lunch ?
( Prior to writing this article I spoke to two fire chiefs and a reporter concerning Tantlinger's qualifications. I placed a call into the 911 center for comments however it was not returned... lol, did you think it would be ? )
Like I said a long time ago, it's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know !
That is scary... because if Terry Marolt were alive today, I would probably be the 911 Director ! Geeeesh !!
DECODED,
K3SAM
Sam W. Jacobs CET
Certified Electronic Technician and Chief Blah-ger
http://800.k3sam.com - website
news@k3sam.com - comments and other junk
911 Audio Clips are at www.k3sam.com/800/AudioClips.html
