The city spent more than $900,000 in overtime pay during the
last full fiscal year, according to documents requested by the Free
Lance and recently provided by Administrative Services Director
Robert Galvan.
The city spent more than $900,000 in overtime pay during the last full fiscal year, according to documents requested by the Free Lance and recently provided by Administrative Services Director Robert Galvan.
The fire and police departments dominate the list of top overtime salaries. Between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007, many police officers and firefighters worked hundreds of hours of overtime and earned tens of thousands of dollars more than their base salaries, according to the city’s numbers.
Those statistics reflect staffing shortages at both departments, said Police Chief Jeff Miller.
“For us, overtime is often something that we can’t avoid,” Miller said. “We can’t say, ‘Hey, we don’t have any police today.'”
Fire Chief Fred Cheshire said he has the bare minimum number of firefighters on each 24-hour shift. When someone takes vacation time or sick leave, others have to step in and work overtime, he said.
“The overtime’s cheaper than hiring (extra) personnel, but I think we’re getting close to that break point,” Cheshire said.
The city’s top overtime worker, police officer Rudy Rodriguez, worked 820.5 overtime hours and earned $39,204 from it. That means Rodriguez worked an average of 15.8 hours of overtime per week and received overtime pay adding up to nearly 60 percent of his base salary for fiscal year 2007-08.
On Oct. 27, the Free Lance published a list of top budgeted city salaries. That list consisted mainly of department heads such as Cheshire, Miller and City Manager Clint Quilter. But if Rodriguez works the same amount of overtime this year as he did in fiscal year 2006-07, he will make more than $105,000 and rank as the seventh highest-paid city employee. Police Sgt. Ray Wood would also break in to the top 10.
Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said high overtime salaries reflect “a failure of management.”
“Overtime is an important tool for police and firefighters when dealing with emergencies,” said Vosburgh, whose group advocates for lower taxes and responsible government spending. “Most of the time, work is routine and can be predicted.
“Management should be staffing shifts sufficiently. If they’re not, then they need to really, thoroughly investigate why that is and come forward with that in detail to the public.”
Mayor Brad Pike agreed that some city workers are probably working too much overtime.
“It’s unfortunate that the staffing level is in such a low place that it puts public servants in this position,” said Pike, also a captain with the Saratoga Fire Department.
When someone works hundreds of hours of overtime, Pike said he wonders: “Where’s their life? Where’s their personal time?”
The police department is taking steps to minimize overtime and its impact on officers, Miller said. For example, if a police officer working the night shift also needs to make a court appearance, the department tries to schedule that appearance as early as possible so the officer can get some sleep.
“Given their druthers, they’d much rather have their time off, because they’re tired,” Miller said.
Staffing levels at both departments are likely to improve soon because Hollister voters approved Measure T, a 1 percent sales tax increase projected to earn the city between $3.5 million and $4 million per year.
“That’s not going to eliminate the overtime, but it’s going to get us up to a point that’s more reasonable,” Cheshire said.
Top 10 overtime salaries, fiscal year 2006-2007
Name Position Overtime hours worked Amount paid
1. Rudy Rodriguez police officer 820.5 $39,204.34
2. Ray Wood police sergeant 591.5 $32,811.70
3. Daryl Askew fire engineer 813 $30,121.65
4. Mark Aguirre fire engineer 806.5 $29,880.83
5. David Young firefighter 814 $27,301.56
6. John Parrinello fire engineer 727 $26,935.35
7. Michael O’Connor fire captain 615 $25,175.04
8. David Godoy police officer 523.25 $25,001.39
9. Nicholaus Carlquist police officer 564 $24,114.68
10. Raymond Celano police officer 509 $24,107.90
Source: City of Hollister
