Sunday, August 04, 2019 10:07:51 PM
Unraveling the mystery behind one LADWP worker’s $313,865 in overtime pay
Security officer worked an average of 70 hours of OT every week, and others were close behind him
So how, exactly, does a security officer earn overtime worth $313,865 in a single year?
The Southern California News Group received a swarm of demands for an explanation after it published an analysis July 7 showing city and county governments spent twice as much on overtime in 2018 as they did in 2011.
Figures showed 306 workers at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power earned more than $100,000 in overtime last year — in addition to their regular pay — but LADWP officials could not immediately provide details or explanations. It is helping unravel the mystery now.
LADWP principal security officer Ricardo Frias earned that $313,865 in overtime — more than any other city or county worker in California — by clocking 3,764 hours of OT in 2018, said LADWP spokeswoman Dawn Cotterell.
“Based on the work rules in effect when he worked, he was compensated at double time for most of the shifts he worked because DWP was understaffed and he regularly worked long or double shifts,” Cotterell said in an email.
This averages out to more than 70 hours of overtime per week. At $83.38 per hour. Every week of the year.
California cities and total of workers who earned more than $100,000 in overtime in 2018. Where cities are grouped together, each city had that number of $100K overtime earners.
Overtime, explained LADWP spokeswoman Ellen Cheng, is not based on having first worked a 40-hour week. It’s based on working extra time beyond a normal shift, and normal shifts can vary, she said.
At LADWP, an independent city agency funded by ratepayers, some labor agreements specify that if more than one hour of overtime is worked immediately preceding a normal work shift, the entire normal shift must be paid at double-time.
Thus, Frias is not the only DWP security employee to earn enormous overtime. Another security officer earned $229,117 in overtime. Another earned $221,620. Yet another earned $196,244.
Contracts designed to ‘enrich workers’
But the numbers have outraged many.
“The security officers at DWP have flashlights and walk around the premises.
This isn’t law enforcement or anything even approaching that. Why are they paying one guy $313,000?,” asked Robert Fellner, executive director at Transparent California, a nonprofit that publishes public pay data and does its own analyses.
“The answer is explicit in the contracts — they’re written to enrich the workers as much as possible,” he said.
The median wage for security officers in America — defined as the wage at which half the workers earned more and half earned less — was $28,530 a year in 2018, or $13.72 per hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The lowest 10 percent of security officers earned less than $23,090, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $55,520, the agency said.
DWP officials are working on providing more detail about workers who earn considerable overtime pay.
Numerous DWP electric distribution mechanics, dispatchers and supervisors routinely clocked overtime in excess of $200,000 a year.
The Southern California News Group has requested time card data to better understand precisely how that happens.
Time tricks
Other state and local government workers have been able to inflate overtime by counting vacation and sick hours as “time worked” in a given week — that is, a couple of sick days or vacation days, followed by a couple of regular work days, and then overtime shifts at time-and-a-half or double-time.
That allows workers to collect overtime even if they haven’t worked more than 40 hours in a week.
A 2008 audit of overtime in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department detailed how some manipulated the system under the heading “Frequently Taking Single Days off during each Pay Period.” .
“In this practice, an employee working large amounts of overtime consistently takes a day off per pay period.
This practice allows the employee to receive paid time off … and then work more days of overtime at other points during the week, still earning more than he/she would if he/she had just worked a straight schedule.”
Disconcerting, the audit called it. Orange County sheriff’s deputies gave up the perk, and firefighters with the Orange County Fire Authority gave it up as well, but it is common at other public agencies.
Asked if vacation/sick time counts as “time worked” when calculating overtime at LADWP, Chen said, “LADWP employees do not get compensated for overtime when they are out sick or on vacation.”
SCNG is seeking to further clarity that.
‘Constant need of skilled labor’
Cotterell, the other LADWP spokeswoman, pointed a reporter toward a statement from the department in the wake of Transparent California’s critique of its overtime bills.
“Any overtime pay at LADWP is earned with time and labor,” it says. “With low unemployment and a rapidly aging workforce, LADWP is in constant need of skilled labor to fill positions to keep LA’s lights on and water flowing.
Vacancies in key positions often result in higher overtime for staff. In some cases of especially understaffed areas, or highly skilled positions, higher amounts of overtime are necessary to operate 24/7/365 days a year, while recruitment and hiring are underway.”
This year, LADWP has taken steps to reduce overtime in security services by hiring 19 new officers, with 11 more expected in the coming months, the statement says.
Cotterell said Frias, the top overtime earner, had regular pay of $86,693 in addition to the $313,865 in overtime (the state controller’s data — furnished by the LADWP — lists his regular pay at $25,134).
Assuming a 40-hour week, that translates to $41.68 an hour of straight time.
“It’s so infuriating,” Fellner said. “L.A. claims to be progressive, but this is the most unfair, regressive tax on lower income people. Power and water bills could be $15 or $20 less a month if the DWP paid market wages.”
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/07/12/unraveling-the-mystery-behind-one-ladwp-workers-313865-in-overtime-pay/
Security officer worked an average of 70 hours of OT every week, and others were close behind him
So how, exactly, does a security officer earn overtime worth $313,865 in a single year?
The Southern California News Group received a swarm of demands for an explanation after it published an analysis July 7 showing city and county governments spent twice as much on overtime in 2018 as they did in 2011.
Figures showed 306 workers at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power earned more than $100,000 in overtime last year — in addition to their regular pay — but LADWP officials could not immediately provide details or explanations. It is helping unravel the mystery now.
LADWP principal security officer Ricardo Frias earned that $313,865 in overtime — more than any other city or county worker in California — by clocking 3,764 hours of OT in 2018, said LADWP spokeswoman Dawn Cotterell.
“Based on the work rules in effect when he worked, he was compensated at double time for most of the shifts he worked because DWP was understaffed and he regularly worked long or double shifts,” Cotterell said in an email.
This averages out to more than 70 hours of overtime per week. At $83.38 per hour. Every week of the year.
California cities and total of workers who earned more than $100,000 in overtime in 2018. Where cities are grouped together, each city had that number of $100K overtime earners.
Overtime, explained LADWP spokeswoman Ellen Cheng, is not based on having first worked a 40-hour week. It’s based on working extra time beyond a normal shift, and normal shifts can vary, she said.
At LADWP, an independent city agency funded by ratepayers, some labor agreements specify that if more than one hour of overtime is worked immediately preceding a normal work shift, the entire normal shift must be paid at double-time.
Thus, Frias is not the only DWP security employee to earn enormous overtime. Another security officer earned $229,117 in overtime. Another earned $221,620. Yet another earned $196,244.
Contracts designed to ‘enrich workers’
But the numbers have outraged many.
“The security officers at DWP have flashlights and walk around the premises.
This isn’t law enforcement or anything even approaching that. Why are they paying one guy $313,000?,” asked Robert Fellner, executive director at Transparent California, a nonprofit that publishes public pay data and does its own analyses.
“The answer is explicit in the contracts — they’re written to enrich the workers as much as possible,” he said.
The median wage for security officers in America — defined as the wage at which half the workers earned more and half earned less — was $28,530 a year in 2018, or $13.72 per hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The lowest 10 percent of security officers earned less than $23,090, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $55,520, the agency said.
DWP officials are working on providing more detail about workers who earn considerable overtime pay.
Numerous DWP electric distribution mechanics, dispatchers and supervisors routinely clocked overtime in excess of $200,000 a year.
The Southern California News Group has requested time card data to better understand precisely how that happens.
Time tricks
Other state and local government workers have been able to inflate overtime by counting vacation and sick hours as “time worked” in a given week — that is, a couple of sick days or vacation days, followed by a couple of regular work days, and then overtime shifts at time-and-a-half or double-time.
That allows workers to collect overtime even if they haven’t worked more than 40 hours in a week.
A 2008 audit of overtime in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department detailed how some manipulated the system under the heading “Frequently Taking Single Days off during each Pay Period.” .
“In this practice, an employee working large amounts of overtime consistently takes a day off per pay period.
This practice allows the employee to receive paid time off … and then work more days of overtime at other points during the week, still earning more than he/she would if he/she had just worked a straight schedule.”
Disconcerting, the audit called it. Orange County sheriff’s deputies gave up the perk, and firefighters with the Orange County Fire Authority gave it up as well, but it is common at other public agencies.
Asked if vacation/sick time counts as “time worked” when calculating overtime at LADWP, Chen said, “LADWP employees do not get compensated for overtime when they are out sick or on vacation.”
SCNG is seeking to further clarity that.
‘Constant need of skilled labor’
Cotterell, the other LADWP spokeswoman, pointed a reporter toward a statement from the department in the wake of Transparent California’s critique of its overtime bills.
“Any overtime pay at LADWP is earned with time and labor,” it says. “With low unemployment and a rapidly aging workforce, LADWP is in constant need of skilled labor to fill positions to keep LA’s lights on and water flowing.
Vacancies in key positions often result in higher overtime for staff. In some cases of especially understaffed areas, or highly skilled positions, higher amounts of overtime are necessary to operate 24/7/365 days a year, while recruitment and hiring are underway.”
This year, LADWP has taken steps to reduce overtime in security services by hiring 19 new officers, with 11 more expected in the coming months, the statement says.
Cotterell said Frias, the top overtime earner, had regular pay of $86,693 in addition to the $313,865 in overtime (the state controller’s data — furnished by the LADWP — lists his regular pay at $25,134).
Assuming a 40-hour week, that translates to $41.68 an hour of straight time.
“It’s so infuriating,” Fellner said. “L.A. claims to be progressive, but this is the most unfair, regressive tax on lower income people. Power and water bills could be $15 or $20 less a month if the DWP paid market wages.”
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/07/12/unraveling-the-mystery-behind-one-ladwp-workers-313865-in-overtime-pay/
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