Yep that's right. That's what I said. There is no need to get rid of 1000 cops.

There is no need to worry about all your precious services being cut back.

There is WAAAAAAAAAY TOOO MUCH MONEY already.

So let's give all the hourly government workers a $1000.00 a year raise and put em on SALARY.

Then all the MILLIONS of dollars we are spending on UNNECCESSARY OVERTIME will stop and we can hire regular SALARIED workers to take up the slack and still have money left over.

I know all you marxists should understand this and many people who have worked as SALARIED employees will understand this.

But will the HOURLY government employees understand this?? Yes, but they will whine. Especially avocado man..

Read the Seattle Times article and then multiply this SCAM times EVERY HOURLY GOVERMENT WORKER(?)

Yes there is a question mark because we ALL know the every government worker doesn't really work. Some of them just waste time and money. Kind of like college personnel.

The articel is the PERFECT example of the sham and scam of government waste and lies.

Here is the Seattle Times URL for those who know how to click.http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/over_19991003.html

And for those who don't want to click I will post part of it.

And those of you who dwell in the realms of mystery likfe Jeffey Baby and crew.....well we know you refuse to acknowledge anything that exists outside of your fishbowl.

There is more to the article but you have to buy the paper. Or for you UW people....pick it up free..

Posted at 10:28 p.m. PDT; Sunday, October 3, 1999

Overtime for Seattle city staff is growing

by J. Martin McOmber and Arthur Santana Seattle Times staff reporters Michael Clark struck gold under the streets of Seattle. Working nights and weekends last year, the City Light engineer who designed underground utility installations on Capitol Hill took home $80,392.82 in overtime, more than any other employee on the city's payroll.

Added to his base salary of $57,000, Clark even earned more than his top boss, City Light Superintendent Gary Zarker.

"I know that the job I did for the city was fantastic," said Clark, 38, who is taking at least a year off from the power company to try his luck as a producer in Hollywood. "I must have been one of the hardest-working guys in Seattle."

Not quite.

That title belongs to Fire Battalion Chief Angelo Duggins. The veteran firefighter didn't earn as much overtime as Zarker, but he clocked the most hours last year. Duggins had a whopping 3,462 hours, averaging 67 a week.

"It means that I've done my job, and I'm over at other battalion stations doing someone else's's job," said Duggins, 48, whose overtime totaled more than $56,000. "I sign up more than most people."

Clark and Duggins aren't alone. The city's overtime costs are soaring, and hundreds of city workers are cashing in, according to a Seattle Times analysis of payroll records.

Out of roughly 11,400 city employees, more than 900 earned at least $10,000 in overtime in 1998. Some 640 have already reached that mark this year.

The city's overtime bill has jumped more than 50 percent during the past three years, while the base payroll has grown just 9 percent. Seattle spent $31.5 million on overtime in 1998, up from $20.7 million in 1996. In 1998, the city spent $632 million on regular pay, employee benefits and overtime.

The city is on pace to set a new overtime record this year. Seattle's continuing development boom, a tight labor market and preparations for the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in November and the turn-of-the-millennium New Year's Eve celebration are straining public resources like never before.

The trend raises questions about whether overtime is the smartest way to deal with increased workloads. And while overtime is a welcome income boost for many employees, some managers worry about burnout and the toll long hours can take on families.

"We do not see this as a general policy trend we are comfortable with," said City Light chief Zarker, whose department spent the most on overtime last year. "Certainly there are some people who are working way too much overtime, and we are way too dependent on them."

Brian Livingston, director of The Civic Foundation, a fiscal watchdog group, said skyrocketing overtime should make Seattle's top officials more than just uncomfortable.

"This indicates a government that isn't carefully monitoring its use of taxpayer dollars," he said. "In private industry that would immediately cause red flags, and somebody would pay for it with their job."

Deputy Mayor Maud Smith Daudon said in many cases, departments are having difficulty recruiting skilled workers for existing positions. And if it is a choice between paying overtime and hiring a contractor, the city's own workers are a better deal.

"Is (overtime) a concern to us? Yes," she said. "We are trying to develop strategies . . . to find a different way to attract and recruit people. I'm sure Boeing and other employers around here are having the same problem."

Daudon said she knows of no cases of employees abusing overtime or claiming extra hours they didn't work.

The average 40-hour-a-week worker is paid for 2,080 hours a year. But overtime pay is calculated in various ways, depending on the department, the position, and the time of day worked.

For example, City Light workers are generally paid double time for any work past their eight-hour shift. But firefighters work on staggered 24-hour shifts; their base salary is calculated on more than a 40-hour work week, and their overtime pay varies from straight time to time and a half depending on when it is worked.

While overtime is up across the city, three departments in particular are driving the boom: City Light, police and fire. Combined, they account for two-thirds of all overtime paid.

Overtime has been a thorny issue in the past. The Seattle Police Department came under fire in 1997 for blowing its overtime budget as a wave of retirements left it understaffed. The problem got so bad that officers were working overtime to cover normal patrol shifts, and some officers were concerned for their safety.

The department is now on track to be fully staffed by the end of 2000.

Assistant Chief Clark Kimerer, head of the Finance and Planning Bureau, said everyone in the department knows about the crackdown on overtime, a "conscious minute-by-minute sort of oversight by our commanders, lieutenants, sergeants and, quite frankly, the officers. The officers know darn well where we're at."

That has meant the department is on target to clocking no more than 185,000 hours by year's end, down 29,000 from overtime hours clocked last year, Kimerer said.

"It's been a pretty remarkable success story to date," Kimerer said.

But he's quick to point out that 185,000 hours does not include WTO policing.

"That was not part of the expected budget overtime at the time that this (budget) was established," Kimerer said.

The event will likely push the department into record territory again.

The Seattle Fire Department is on pace to break a new record in overtime this year, and fire officials say there's nothing they can or are planning to do about it.

Switching from three- to four-member engine crews, to improve firefighter safety and response times, put a huge demand on the existing staff. And the department is in the middle of a hiring binge that is driving up overtime devoted to training the new employees. A special terrorism-preparedness program involving hundreds of firefighters has also contributed to the increase, said Fire Chief James Sewell.

He said that overtime is "something that we want to minimize, but it's something that we really don't consider a problem. I don't see it as something that is a looming issue that has to be eliminated because I don't think it can be eliminated."

Trouble finding workers

The problem at City Light is too much work and too few people. Officials say they are having trouble finding qualified, skilled workers to handle the increase in demand from all the new construction around town.

The utility is also in the middle of several major upgrades, including a $200 million project to improve downtown's underground network. That work is mostly being done at night - on overtime - because the streets need to remain open during the day.

Clark, the city's OT king, found himself overseeing a $40 million project to upgrade transmission lines on the west side of Capitol Hill and place them underground.

The job required working with private developers and contractors, city crews and community groups. He said he had to come in on weekends just to catch up on the actual engineering part of his job.

"I used to jokingly say 'City before Self,' " he said. "The janitors got to know me really well."

But even Clark said he didn't fully realize the amount of hours he put in. It also came as a surprise to his boss, Deputy City Light Superintendent Jesse Krail.

"(It was) very important, critical work, and he was doing a great job," Krail said. "I guess I lost sight of the fact that it was adding up and adding up and adding up, and all of a sudden you stand back and say wow."

Clark also won an employee-of-the-year award - and $250 - for his efforts. After earning $34,000 in overtime this year, he sold his home and moved to Los Angeles to join his wife, an aspiring actress.

City has no limit on OT

Clark might have set an overtime record, but he didn't break any rules. In fact, the city has no overall policy on overtime. And there is no limit to how many hours an employee can work each year.

The decision on how much to spend on overtime varies by each department. As long as they don't exceed their payroll budget for the year, it's left up to managers to determine how much overtime is necessary.

Fire and police officials have blown their overtime budgets for the past several years. But they argue the extra spending is necessary and should be viewed differently from other agencies' because the services they provide are indispensable.

If a firefighter calls in sick or is on vacation, the department is required to have that position filled by another firefighter.

That's how Battalion Chief Duggins, who oversees several fire stations in Seattle's downtown area, racked up so much overtime. When one of the six battalion chiefs is out, only another battalion chief can fill in. And Duggins, who makes nearly $90,000 a year in salary, is one of the first to raise his hand. He's single and has the free time to work other shifts. Duggins' overtime could pay the salary of a rookie firefighter, but the 26-year veteran makes no excuses.

"I'm not doing anything that is breaking any rules. I'm not doing anything that is unethical," he said.

For most employees, especially those working under union contracts, overtime is voluntary. Few can be required to work more than 40 hours a week. But even those who don't mind the extra cash say there is a pressure to put in overtime hours when the workload demands it.

Michael Soreng works on a crew that prepares huge transformers for installation. The City Light electrician hasn't seen it so busy since the building boom of the mid 1980s.

So far this year, Soreng has added more than $27,400 to his regular pay, placing him in the top 50 of overtime earners.

"Let's put it this way, I never really enjoyed working overtime per se," said Soreng, who is saving the money for his upcoming retirement. "(But) we know we need to do it. . . . If we don't do the work, it won't get done."

Soreng says his boss works hard to keep overtime at a minimum. Crews work only on jobs that must be done right away. And anyone feeling burned out can take a few days off.

Still, officials say the strain of employees working so many hours is starting to show.

"I see some of our specialty crews are not as readily volunteering for the overtime," said Deputy Superintendent Krail. "So we need to make some changes."

City efforts to cut OT

One step City Light has taken is creating a night shift for utility crews who would earn a salary premium instead of the more lucrative overtime. Under the union contract, however, workers can't be required to work the new shift, and few are volunteering.

The most obvious answer to reducing overtime is hiring more workers. But the solution isn't as simple as it sounds, officials say.

Those earning the most overtime are skilled workers, such as utility crews and firefighters. It can take months, even years, to recruit and train such employees. Finding qualified people has become a very difficult task. The tight labor market and abundant opportunities in the private sector make working for municipal government a tough sell.

City Light is 37 engineers short of the 164 it would like to have on staff. It's a similar situation with electrical workers.

"We are aggressively trying to fill them," Krail said of the openings. But the department is having a hard time just keeping up with retirements and defections to other utilities.

For City Light crew chief Douglas Smart, the lack of bodies means more work. Smart has been kept very busy working on the downtown upgrade, and the $37,315 he has earned in overtime so far this year has put him near the top of the list of overtime earners.

The father of three, he likes to help out with Little League and Cub Scouts and says working six- or seven-day weeks can get tough.

"The money is nice, but you only live once," he said.

Copyright ) 1999 Seattle Times Company

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), October 03, 1999

Answers

Mad:

Have you heard of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act? Very few employees can be salary employees. As for as hours worked, and cost per hour, sometimes overtime is no more expensive than hiring additional staff. Overtime personnel do not cost more for most benefits, for example; and they are paid only for hours that are actually necessary for some reason.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 03, 1999.

d-

Stop being an apologist for the obviously ridiculous. You undermine your own credibility on other issues.

"The problem at City Light is too much work and too few people. Officials say they are having trouble finding qualified, skilled workers to handle the increase in demand from all the new construction around town." Why on earth do we have a municipal utility anyway? Why doesn't Seattle get it's power and power distribution from commercial utility systems? Works for most industry, and many citizens and rural areas.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

It's not just City Light. It's EVERY agency across the state. There was an announcement last night that the King County Sheriffs dept spent 2.2 million of it's 2.3 million overtime budget in six months. Of course they are going to need to spend MUCH more but that's no problem. They will just get more money OFF budget.

I mean who cares? It's just money and the citizens are loaded with it so steal some more.

If the state (and that means any government entity) can't eliminate unions for GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (why would it? It LOVES to be forced to squeeze the balls of the population for a little more grift) and shutdown the stranglehold they have on our LIVES then they should scratch the program and start over with NON-UNION.

We need more part time and full time people to take up the slack instead of paying exhorbitant amounts for semi-useless outlays of money. The heads of departments don't need any over time. They, at least, should be on salary.

Our public 'servants' are ripping us off and grinning all the way to the bank

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

That is a blatant lie, "our public 'servants' are ripping us off and grinning all the way to the bank.

Public servants is exactly what we are, cleaning up after a bunch of ungrateful, complaining, egotists like yourself.

First, there are not enough people to supply the type of utility that keep this city running. You want lights, pay for them.

Second, City Light has the lowest cost electricity in the nation. One of the only public utilities left that generates its own electricity, and supllies it to all city light, plus some outlining communities, customers.

Third, everybody I know in our offices puts in a hard days worth of work to make just enough amount of money that they need to survive. Many here work way harder than they should have too, picking up projects and other duties because they have the knowledge to do so, not because they have the time, and THEY DON'T TAKE OVERTIME PAY.

If you are willing to attempt to discredit everything that our local papers say that is negative about I-695, then you should not use one story about "overtime pay", which is a one case in point, and does not show what the other 99.9999% of city employees are doing, as your bible to support your beliefes.

It is my job in fact to save money for city utilities. To find the customers who are not paying their utilities, to find the lost revenue that the utilities deserves to help it operate more efficiently, lowering YOUR costs. My work when I am finished will help many parts of this utility work in a more productive manner.

To boot it is a temporary job. I am not allowed to work overtime even when I put in more hours in a week than 40. I get no benefits, no salary, no retirement plan, no paid vacation, no sick leave. When I am out of the office, I do not get paid. I am not covered by the union, and when all is said and done, they can fire me as quickly as the weather changes in this state.

I think the fact that this one employee who made more in overtime than in his salary is a bit of a joke. Who let him work that much? Whether it happened or not is besides the point, if you had any idea of the amount of growth that is taking place in this city you would find it justifiable that a knowledgable individual, who knew how to get things done, helped to rewire the entire downtown area so we could have a baseball field, light up Nordstroms and that area, put in new hotels and even get ready for a football stadium, plus the thousands of other building projects that take place everyday. Many of these project are payed for by the companies that they directly benefit, so don't think that it all comes out of your pocket.

The world continues to turns outside of your golf corse laden little life.

Check the article on the front page of Mondays, October 4th P.I.

Yah, Eyman realy looks like the "forgotten middleclass underdog", little baby!

-- ac (calavo@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

Well ac, let me be the first one to apologize to you that you can't get hired on full time and have to work as a temp. Temp jobs are not bad, I have a number of friends that work as temps for Microsoft and love it.

In terms of the amount of overtime that is paid to city workers, I also believe it is ridiculous. I am on salary and would love nothing more than to be paid for the amount of time I actually work. For the amount of time this dude paid for overtime, the city could have easily hired a second person and hence share the wealth with other temp workers who want to be full time.

The relevance here is that so many politicians and governmental unions spout off about how services will have to compete with one another for money. Well if you have enough cash to pay one dude $80K in overtime and you are still within your payroll budget, then perhaps you overshot your mark in your budget request.

-- Matt Greenway (mattg@mossadams.com), October 04, 1999.

How do you figure?

If you have exact number for everything then you have no problem in overshooting your expectations.

As we know in the real world, where projects are pending, work needs doing and a quality product needs to be turned out, and you have over 5,000 employees, nailing the head on how many hours you need to pay for is vertualy imposible. Been to Safeco Field?

This is not 7-11 here. Don't hold your public utilities to any more than you could produce.

-- ac (calavo@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

"Public servants is exactly what we are, cleaning up after a bunch of ungrateful, complaining, egotists like yourself. " ac, If you don't like working for us, and you obviously don't, go out and get a job in the real world.

"does not show what the other 99.9999% of city employees are doing" Gee...... If one person is doing this, and the other 99.9999 aren't, we must have AT LEAST one million city employees. No wonder the taxes are so damn high.

Let's trim down to ESSENTIAL government functions. Power generation sure ain't that. Why don't we privatize this, then we can tax the generation facilities, the transmission lines, etc. And we can compete these services to get the lowest possible price.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

Hey Craig- Let me shine a little light on the subject. Seattle City Light has the cheapest, lowest costing, hydro generated electricity in the nation. Cheapest, anywhere, and will beat any other utilitie by about a buck. We give you enough cheap power at a cheap rate to keep you and the other Stooges typing all day long.

-- ac (calavo@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

Dang- With ac's encouragement, I did a little more reading about Seattle City Light. While they have rates that are lower than other municipal rates (they give San Antonio Texas, which gets its power by burning coal brought down from Montana as a comparison), these aren't exceptional for northwest rates, certainly little better than you could get from puget power or WWP (now avista). What id oes show, however, is vast tracts of land and other real property that are kept off the tax rolls because they are government owned. Man, would it ever be a win-win situation if these were privatized, better efficiency, and local school districts in the Skagit valley would be much better off. Thanks ac, for the great target!

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

PS: For those interested, the budget website is: http://www.pan.ci.seattle.wa.us/budget/00budget/scl.pdf

PPS: ac-- Thanks again. Are you putting in overtime to come up with all these great targets for privatization? Keep it up. It's worth the overtime.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

Just so others will find the proof in the pudding! Check out: www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/accounts/rates/ac5_rtcm.asp

-- ac (calavo@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

And just to show that Avista (used to be Washington Water Power, used here in Spokane where we have no city owned electric utility) is competitive, check

http://www.avistacorp.com/utilities/residential/pdf/Wa_E/Wa_Res_Elec_2 Calc_bills_1.1.97.PDF

AND Avista pays taxes on its properties and pays taxes on its income and generates a return to its stockholders which helps the overall economy, and covers it's own capital costs and covers its own employee pension costs. Dang ac, sounds like we'd all be better off if you let Avista do it.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

"As we know in the real world, where projects are pending, work needs doing and a quality product needs to be turned out, and you have over 5,000 employees, nailing the head on how many hours you need to pay for is vertualy imposible."

It is called project management. If you have smart people working for you, then the likelihood that you will be able accurately cost a project is significantly higher. As most of us know, if you are any good at what you do, the probability of getting hired in a expeditious manner in the private sector is pretty high. Now because the government requires x time and x number of interviews means that the pool of perspective candidates drops over time. What is left are those people that couldn't get hired in the interim. Draw your own conclusions.

"Been to Safeco Field? "

No I haven't. After the last fiasco, I will never go and see a game. I won't contribute to the profit margin of an organization that will bilk the public as they did.

"This is not 7-11 here. Don't hold your public utilities to any more than you could produce."

Considering the fact that I am a computer programmer, I don't think our industries share enough in common for me to hold you to anything that I wouldn't demand of anyone else - competence.

-- Matt Greenway (mattg@mossadams.com), October 04, 1999.

ac-

According to the budget (http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/budget/00budget/scl.pdf) you guys have 1778 FTE permanent authorizations, and 15.58 FTE temporaries. Now I understand that YOU are one of the 15.58 and don't get many bennies. Any idea what the bennies are for the others? Starting pay looks pretty good. What's the retirement like? You guys in social sercurity, or opted out for the better civil service benefits? What would your rates look like if these program costs were not subsidized by the city taxpayers, any idea?

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

ac-

Notice you're raising the rates substantially (http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/accounts/rates/ac5_nrt2000.htm#over view), especially for suburban and business customers. Deregulation in the industry is bringing every body elses rates DOWN. Whats happening here? Time to Privatize!! ;>

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

Craig wrote, "Stop being an apologist for the obviously ridiculous. You undermine your own credibility on other issues."

What part of my comment did you think was "obviously ridiculus"?

I stated what is obviously factual for many organizations. Short term staff needs are better filled by overtime than hiring. Employers deal with their own situations, and labor issues, as they are required to by their labor contract - which may be imposed by an arbiter in this state rather than agreed to by the employer.

You asked why Seattle has their own power utility, instead of using the private providers. Seattle is a city that has existed a long time, with a lot of history. Someone probably thought it was a good idea many years ago, and the community agreed. They still seem to agree. No one has run for city council on a platform of privatization of City Light that I can remember. What has that got to do with 695? Is everything you personnaly disagree with, that is done by some government that may not even be accountable to you, a reason to cause them funding problems? You can't expect to agree with everything government does.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 04, 1999.

" What part of my comment did you think was "obviously ridiculus(sic)"? I stated what is obviously factual for many organizations. Short term staff needs are better filled by overtime than hiring"

A guy AVERAGES 67 hours A WEEK of overtime over the course of a YEAR?

And you have to ask?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 04, 1999.

Craig--"A guy AVERAGES 67 hours A WEEK of overtime over the course ofN a YEAR? "

This is not how I read the article. I read it as he averaged a 67 hour work week. This would (presuming the fire dept has a 40 hour week) lead to an average of 27 hours of overtime/week.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), October 05, 1999.

Brad- You are right, I stand corrected. That reply was misworded. The principal still holds. What kind of a system allows someone to average 67 hours/week. At time and a half, it's cheaper to get a second guy, particularly when you have well trained junior people you could promote.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 05, 1999.

Most departments work a 56 hour work week, however I believe Seattle works a 48 hour work week.

-- Ken (klemay@amouse.net), October 05, 1999.

Craig writes:

"At time and a half, it's cheaper to get a second guy, particularly when you have well trained junior people you could promote."

Except that it's not. Firefighters work a straight 1/3 schedule in Seattle, meaning 24 hours on and 72 off. They average out to a 42-48 hour workweek. So essentially, this one chief was taking one extra shift per week! That's all.

Assuming that he covered most of the overtime for chiefs in Seattle (as the article implied), it is NOT more efficient to promote somebody else to cut this one guy's overtime. That person will only be working one shift per week, while making the same salary and drawing the same benefits as those who work two. Also that person has to have the same amount of training, equipment, etc. as the other chiefs. This is, of course, inefficient; the cost of overtime ends up being less than the cost of having somebody else that only works half as much.

BB

-- BB (bbquax@hotmail.com), October 05, 1999.