We know that bureaucrats at the local level are making more than their private sector counterparts, but this is point blank stealing from the taxpayers. One more reason to think about who you voter for in the fall. It’s the current congress (both Democrats and Republicans) that approve the budgets that pay these people.
Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
At a time when workers’ pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.
Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.
The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.
The lastest from Bell, California is that the former City Manager’s salary package actually put him around $1,500,000. He was paid more in vacation that any governor’s salary in the entire country.
On top of that, this crook (let’s call him what he is) owns a horse ranch in Auburn. Take a look at the spread here.
Read about the paid vacation package here and see a picture of the horse ranch here.
If this is true, it is yet another example of how the bureaucrats just don’t get it. Maybe we should yell it…STOP SPENDING!!!
Maybe we should look at overtime spikes in Renton too directly before the required furlough days.
Furloughs: Some say OT used to offset day off
Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget staffers are looking into rumors that state agencies have undercut the expected $73 million in savings from planned furlough days by paying overtime to replacement workers.
Rumors of overtime payments at state welfare and children and family services offices have abounded for months - even before the first round of temporary layoffs took effect in early July.
The folks in Bell, California have the right idea. Maybe the citizens or Renton should rise up and order the salaries be cut of the $100,000 club in the City of Renton. We have the salaries available here if you are interested.
The salaries are from 2007 but we can almost guarantee they’ve gone up since we requested them 3 years ago with a freedom of information request. And if you would like to get some information from the City of Renton (like how much we really are paying in utility taxes). You can visit the Freedom of Information Act Letter Generator. It’s time we expose just how many $100,000 plus salaries we the people pay out to City of Renton employees.
Let’s start with David Skelton. A police sergeant with a base salary of $93,850 and was paid $49,237 in overtime for a total gross pay of $143,087. Or how about Police Commander Kathleen McClincy with a base salary of $121,478 and overtime of $4,903 for a total gross pay in 2007 of $126,381.
It’s not just the Police Department.
How about Deputy Fire Chief Mark Peterson with overtime of $30,933 that bumped his gross income to over $150,000.
Over in the Community Services Department the Community Services Administrator, Therese Higashiyama, is making over $133,000. What the heck does she do?
And back over to the Police Department.
Twenty (20) of the one-hundred fifty-two (152) employees or 13% make over $100,000. And you thought our police department employees weren’t paid well enough didn’t you?
The Fire Department must have a better union negotiator because thirty-three (33) of the one-hundred twenty-four employees or 26% make over $100,000. Maybe they spent their overtime hours coming with a new name for the Fire Department.
So between the Police and Fire Deparment, we the Citizens of Renton paid out close to $2,000,000 in overtime in 2007. We’ve mentioned this before but in the wake of the economy getting worse, we thought we’d mention it again.
Will any other Renton blogs cover this? Probably not.
LA suburb residents march over high city salaries
BELL, Calif. – Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators.
The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar’s Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit.
Maywood, California outsourced nearly the all city employees and saved millions. Maybe Renton could outsource some of our services too. Renton City Council are you listening?
Again, our salaries here in Renton aren’t as high as Bell, California but there are many people working for the City of Renton making over $100,000. Read our Bureaucrat Salaries stories here or take a look at the salaries from 2007 yourself here.
The City of Bell, California is undergoing a huge fight regarding the salaries of City of Bell Administrators.
While we may not have salaries as high as $800,000 here in the City of Renton, We do have lave lots of City of Renton employees making over $100,000. Is it time to stand up and protest like the residents in the City of Bell? Maybe so. If you need a reminder of the high salaries in the City of Renton, here’s a refresher link. And if you want to keep track of our stories about high bureaucrat salaries, bookmark this page.
Also note that the council went into a “closed session”. These are PUBLIC officials. Everything should be done in PUBLIC. City of Bell officials, Like City of Renton officials, seem to forget who pays their salary.
Once you’ve read the story, be sure to check out the related stories. And remember, we have a local newspaper but do you think the Renton Retorter would ever do a story like this. Nope!
And as you’re reading the story, just replace the words “City of Bell” with “City of Renton”.
Investigating Bell: A Los Angeles Times Special Report
An emergency meeting of the Bell City Council to decide the fate of three top administrators who are among the highest paid in the nation got off to a rocky start Thursday afternoon.
Residents angry about the salaries demanded that the discussion be held in public view. But city officials said the personnel matters needed to be discussed behind closed doors, prompting some in the crowd to start shouting. The incident interrupted the meeting briefly, but the council began taking public comments before going into closed session.
Thanks to Dori Monson over at KIRO people are now taking note that there are way to many government “officials” making over $100,000.
Dori even was kind enough to provide a link to an Excel spreadsheet with the salaries listed.
This nonsense needs to stop. Starting voting these clowns out of office so we can reduce government and save some money.
We’ve posted Renton’s salaries from 2007 here on our site as well. Take a look here. There’s lots of folks here in Renton making over $100,000 working for the City of Renton as well.
And our new King County Executive wants to increase the sewer tax by 10%. You’ve got to be kidding. It’s staring to sound like Tax to the Max Sims is back in office.
Ranks of highest-earning House staff increases dramatically
Nearly 2,000 House of Representative staffers pulled down six-figure salaries in 2009, including 43 staffers who earned the maximum $172,500 - or more than three times the median U.S. household income.
In the past five years, the number of House of Representative staffers making near the maximum allowed has jumped 39 percent, even after accounting for a decrease last year.
In 2005, there were 203 staffers near the wage ceiling. In 2008, the number shot up to 304 people before dropping slightly to 282 people last year.
The salaries at the end of this article are over 16 years old but it gives you an idea of what other Hospital Administrators make.
In 1992 CEO of Valley Medical Center, Rich Roodman, received a $10,000 bonus. My how the Valley Medical Center Board has gotten very generous. Do we see the same thing happening at Overlake? We don’t think so.
In 2003, the salary for Steve McCary, former president and chief executive officer of Stevens Hospital in Edmonds was $360,000, plus a $99,000 incentive bonus.
Mike Carter became the CEO of of Stevens Hospital with an annual salary of $300,000.
Evergreen Hospital Medical Center CEO showed a salary of $300,000 a year plus $74,000 in incentives in 2001 for Steve Brown. His predecesssor received a salary of $389,376 with $87,984 in incentives and the way the contract was written he collected fortwo years after he resigned. Sound familar?
At least we’re not dealing with an annual salary of $600,000 a year with a 43% raise in 1999 like what happened at Evergreen. Yikes!
Based on our research it appears many hospitals in the Puget Sound Region seem to offer this two year bonus after their CEO’s retire. Wow! Sure wish we could negotiate that into our contract. Must be nice.
And remember that when many of these salaries were negotiated, housing prices were going up. They’ve now gone down so shouldn’t the salaries go down too? Even if we are trying to lure some great CEO from somewhere else, the salaries should be adjusted accordingly.
General or family practitioner, Pacific states $103,700
General or family practitioner, nationally $111,500
Phil Nudelman, president, Group Health Cooperative $270,000
Dr. Carlos A. Pellegrini, chairman, UW Department of Surgery $315,108 (2)
Robert Muilenburg, executive director, UW Medical Center $146,868
David E. Jaffe, executive director of Harborview Medical Center $144,276
Dr. Robert W. Day, director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center $232,000 (3) Rich Roodman, CEO/hospital administrator, Valley Medical Center $274,000 (4) Dr. John Neff, medical director, Children’s Hospital $166,072
James Sauer, administrator, Providence Hospital $225,593 (5)
Sanderson Jeghers, president and CEO, Overlake Hospital $187,611 (6)
(1) Mean net earnings (after expenses, before taxes), 1991, from American Medical Association’s Center for Health Policy Research.
(2) Current earnings from both state salary ($80,112) and patient fees ($234,996).
(3) Salary is $192,000 plus an additional amount (last year’s was $40,000) for “added work and responsibilities.” This year’s amount has not been set. (4) 1992 salary figure includes $10,000 bonus for meeting goals set by board.
(5) 1990 salary.
(6) Current salary reflects a 5 percent pay cut taken recently by Jeghers and other management team members. In addition, he receives a benefit package of $48,113, including a supplemental retirement benefit.
