Waste of the Day: Los Angeles Workers Earn Up To $614,000 In Overtime

Topline: The City of Los Angeles is so understaffed that some employees are tripling their earnings by picking up excessive overtime shifts, according to payroll records obtained by OpenTheBooks.com.

Are Los Angeles employees abusing overtime pay?

Key facts: Twenty employees earned more than $300,000 in overtime last year. Nine of them work for the fire department and 10 work at the Department of Water and Power.

No one came close to matching fire captain Jason Getchius, who earned $614,000 from overtime — more than three times his base salary of $177,000. Combined with benefits of $30,000, he made over $823,000 last year.

The city had 945 employees who earned more from overtime than from their base salary, counting only those with a salary of at least $20,000. Of those, 143 made more in overtime than Gov. Gavin Newsom made in total ($221,743).

Los Angeles pays overtime at 1.5 times an employee’s normal salary when they work more than eight hours in a day, usually because of staffing shortages. Typically, taxpayers would save money if the city hired enough employees.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

A higher than normal vacancy rate

Background: Los Angeles had a job vacancy rate of 11 percent just before the pandemic. As of December, 17.5 percent of jobs were unfilled — nearly 10,000 positions.

Vacancy rates at individual city departments have reached as high as 32 percent.

That’s partially because more than 2,000 workers retired early in 2020 under a program meant to reduce the city payroll after the pandemic harmed revenues. Dana Brown, head of the city’s personnel department, also blamed the staff shortages on “archaic” civil service rules that often force applicants to wait six months or more during the hiring process.

Summary: Los Angeles pays some of the highest salaries of any U.S. city without factoring in overtime. When employees earn salary at a higher rate, taxpayers lose out on even more savings.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.