December 14, 2004
M.T.A. Spent $15 Million on Officers' Overtime
By SEWELL CHAN The New York Times
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority paid a third of its police officers more than $100,000 last year, and in some cases officers doubled and even tripled their base salaries by working overtime, according to the authority's payroll records.
At the top of the list of 212 officers whose compensation totaled more than $100,000 in 2003 was Lt. Francis P. Zaino, who made $204,859 on a base salary of $86,705. Another lieutenant, Thomas G. Nutter, was paid $199,037, more than double his base salary of $85,708. By that measure, Officer John Wu did even better. He was paid $196,234, more than three times his $61,102 base.
All three earned more than the official in charge of daily operations for the subways, Michael A. Lombardi, a senior vice president at New York City Transit. His total compensation last year was $181,796.
The authority's extensive use of overtime shifts is not just a one-time expense; it can add significantly to the authority's pension costs for years to come. Police pensions are based on a formula that takes into account total pay, including overtime, in the last five years of service. Officers are eligible for pensions after 20 years. Lieutenant Zaino has 24 years on the force, while Lieutenant Nutter and Officer Wu joined the force in 1985 and can retire next year with pensions that factor in their 2003 overtime.
The amount of police overtime - $15.1 million last year - has raised concerns about the oversight of spending by the authority, whose board is expected to vote on Thursday to raise subway, bus and commuter rail fares for the second time in less than two years. Both Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, have called for tighter controls and greater efficiency in spending by the transit system.
Asked to comment on the authority's overtime spending, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg, Jennifer Falk, said, "The mayor has repeatedly said that the M.T.A. can manage its work force more efficiently, and these figures indicate one area where there is room for improvement."
The authority's director of labor relations, Gary J. Dellaverson, defended the practice, saying overtime can be cheaper than hiring additional officers. "What you want to avoid through the use of overtime is surplus," he said.
The union representing the officers, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Benevolent Association, has maintained that many more officers are needed.
The authority's 627-member police force, which was created in 1998 by the merger of the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North police, patrols those two lines and guards the authority's office buildings, train yards and other facilities. Commuters are most likely to encounter its officers at Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station. The New York Police Department has patrolled the city's subways and buses since merging with the Transit Police in 1995.
While police overtime is only a tiny fraction of the authority's $8 billion annual budget, union officials and experts on police policy note that high overtime pay, especially concentrated among a few officers, can indicate a need to increase the size of the force and can also lead to fatigue that may compromise officers' health and the quality of their work. Some of the officers leading in overtime pay worked as many as 90 hours a week, a union official said.
Eugene O'Donnell, an assistant professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the authority's use of overtime "gives rise to questions about whether the supervision is adequate." He added that there was no independent way to determine whether the overtime was necessary.
"The M.T.A. has insulation from direct oversight, and police authorities generally don't have much transparency," said Professor O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor. "Who can step forward and say whether all this overtime is needed?"
Other authority employees, from Long Island Rail Road engineers to security officers at the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, also make substantial overtime pay. But as a group, senior police officers are now the largest single group of employees at the top of the authority's payroll, according to an analysis of salary records obtained from the state comptroller's office.
The authority is trying to reduce such spending through better record-keeping and more careful supervision, officials said. From January through October, it paid $8.9 million for 220,267 hours of overtime, compared with $13.1 million for 306,562 overtime hours over the same period last year. Overtime hours are generally paid at a time-and-a-half basis.
"I would not say that we were good, " Mr. Dellaverson said, "but we are getting better."
The need for overtime has slowly decreased, the officials said, because there are fewer alerts about potential terrorist threats from the federal Department of Homeland Security and other sources of intelligence.
The prominence and responsibilities of the transportation authority police grew after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The department created additional 24-hour security posts and established canine and counterterrorism units. About 200 officers have been added to the force, and its budget has grown to $90.8 million, from $50 million in 1999, according to the city's Independent Budget Office.
Unlike the contracts between the city and its Police and Fire Departments, the authority's contract offers overtime to police officers based on seniority, which has become an issue in negotiations with the union. The officers have worked without a contract since August 2002.
The union has resisted efforts to spread out overtime among more officers, and a proposal by the authority to "equalize" overtime is one of several issues referred in July to an arbitrator hired by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board.
The union president, Raymond W. Gimmler Jr., said overtime work is available for any officer who wants it, and he contended that the real issue is inadequate staffing.
"Any good manager would understand that if people are working 30 or 40 hours a week in overtime, that's a result of being short on manpower," Mr. Gimmler said. "You don't have to be a high-ranking police official - or a police official whatsoever - to understand that concept. They don't seem to understand that."
Mr. Dellaverson criticized the high overtime earned by a small number of officers as a "skewing and corrosive aspect of the collective bargaining system" that can impede the effectiveness of individual officers who work long shifts day after day.
Neither the authority nor the police union would make any officers available for comment. The officers' patrol guide prohibits speaking to the press without authorization.
"I've been instructed to say no comment," Officer Wu told a reporter who tried to interview him when he was working at Grand Central Terminal on Saturday. Lieutenant Zaino declined to comment, and Lieutenant Nutter did not respond to a telephone message.
The authority's police chief from 1999 to 2003, James D. O'Donnell, said that the large number of overtime hours worked by some officers concerned him. He recalled that Officer Wu was particularly renowned for his tirelessness. "He works every single day, from what I remember," he said. "If there was overtime that people didn't want, he grabbed it."
"Management didn't have the ability to tell a police officer he couldn't work seven days a week," said Mr. O'Donnell, who is not related to Professor O'Donnell. "You had some police officers who took advantage of working for as long as they could stand."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
M.T.A. Spent $15 Million on Officers' Overtime
By SEWELL CHAN The New York Times
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority paid a third of its police officers more than $100,000 last year, and in some cases officers doubled and even tripled their base salaries by working overtime, according to the authority's payroll records.
At the top of the list of 212 officers whose compensation totaled more than $100,000 in 2003 was Lt. Francis P. Zaino, who made $204,859 on a base salary of $86,705. Another lieutenant, Thomas G. Nutter, was paid $199,037, more than double his base salary of $85,708. By that measure, Officer John Wu did even better. He was paid $196,234, more than three times his $61,102 base.
All three earned more than the official in charge of daily operations for the subways, Michael A. Lombardi, a senior vice president at New York City Transit. His total compensation last year was $181,796.
The authority's extensive use of overtime shifts is not just a one-time expense; it can add significantly to the authority's pension costs for years to come. Police pensions are based on a formula that takes into account total pay, including overtime, in the last five years of service. Officers are eligible for pensions after 20 years. Lieutenant Zaino has 24 years on the force, while Lieutenant Nutter and Officer Wu joined the force in 1985 and can retire next year with pensions that factor in their 2003 overtime.
The amount of police overtime - $15.1 million last year - has raised concerns about the oversight of spending by the authority, whose board is expected to vote on Thursday to raise subway, bus and commuter rail fares for the second time in less than two years. Both Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, have called for tighter controls and greater efficiency in spending by the transit system.
Asked to comment on the authority's overtime spending, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg, Jennifer Falk, said, "The mayor has repeatedly said that the M.T.A. can manage its work force more efficiently, and these figures indicate one area where there is room for improvement."
The authority's director of labor relations, Gary J. Dellaverson, defended the practice, saying overtime can be cheaper than hiring additional officers. "What you want to avoid through the use of overtime is surplus," he said.
The union representing the officers, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Benevolent Association, has maintained that many more officers are needed.
The authority's 627-member police force, which was created in 1998 by the merger of the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North police, patrols those two lines and guards the authority's office buildings, train yards and other facilities. Commuters are most likely to encounter its officers at Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station. The New York Police Department has patrolled the city's subways and buses since merging with the Transit Police in 1995.
While police overtime is only a tiny fraction of the authority's $8 billion annual budget, union officials and experts on police policy note that high overtime pay, especially concentrated among a few officers, can indicate a need to increase the size of the force and can also lead to fatigue that may compromise officers' health and the quality of their work. Some of the officers leading in overtime pay worked as many as 90 hours a week, a union official said.
Eugene O'Donnell, an assistant professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the authority's use of overtime "gives rise to questions about whether the supervision is adequate." He added that there was no independent way to determine whether the overtime was necessary.
"The M.T.A. has insulation from direct oversight, and police authorities generally don't have much transparency," said Professor O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor. "Who can step forward and say whether all this overtime is needed?"
Other authority employees, from Long Island Rail Road engineers to security officers at the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, also make substantial overtime pay. But as a group, senior police officers are now the largest single group of employees at the top of the authority's payroll, according to an analysis of salary records obtained from the state comptroller's office.
The authority is trying to reduce such spending through better record-keeping and more careful supervision, officials said. From January through October, it paid $8.9 million for 220,267 hours of overtime, compared with $13.1 million for 306,562 overtime hours over the same period last year. Overtime hours are generally paid at a time-and-a-half basis.
"I would not say that we were good, " Mr. Dellaverson said, "but we are getting better."
The need for overtime has slowly decreased, the officials said, because there are fewer alerts about potential terrorist threats from the federal Department of Homeland Security and other sources of intelligence.
The prominence and responsibilities of the transportation authority police grew after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The department created additional 24-hour security posts and established canine and counterterrorism units. About 200 officers have been added to the force, and its budget has grown to $90.8 million, from $50 million in 1999, according to the city's Independent Budget Office.
Unlike the contracts between the city and its Police and Fire Departments, the authority's contract offers overtime to police officers based on seniority, which has become an issue in negotiations with the union. The officers have worked without a contract since August 2002.
The union has resisted efforts to spread out overtime among more officers, and a proposal by the authority to "equalize" overtime is one of several issues referred in July to an arbitrator hired by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board.
The union president, Raymond W. Gimmler Jr., said overtime work is available for any officer who wants it, and he contended that the real issue is inadequate staffing.
"Any good manager would understand that if people are working 30 or 40 hours a week in overtime, that's a result of being short on manpower," Mr. Gimmler said. "You don't have to be a high-ranking police official - or a police official whatsoever - to understand that concept. They don't seem to understand that."
Mr. Dellaverson criticized the high overtime earned by a small number of officers as a "skewing and corrosive aspect of the collective bargaining system" that can impede the effectiveness of individual officers who work long shifts day after day.
Neither the authority nor the police union would make any officers available for comment. The officers' patrol guide prohibits speaking to the press without authorization.
"I've been instructed to say no comment," Officer Wu told a reporter who tried to interview him when he was working at Grand Central Terminal on Saturday. Lieutenant Zaino declined to comment, and Lieutenant Nutter did not respond to a telephone message.
The authority's police chief from 1999 to 2003, James D. O'Donnell, said that the large number of overtime hours worked by some officers concerned him. He recalled that Officer Wu was particularly renowned for his tirelessness. "He works every single day, from what I remember," he said. "If there was overtime that people didn't want, he grabbed it."
"Management didn't have the ability to tell a police officer he couldn't work seven days a week," said Mr. O'Donnell, who is not related to Professor O'Donnell. "You had some police officers who took advantage of working for as long as they could stand."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
