San Diego firefighter overtime exceeds $46 million

[TexasTowelie]

The city of San Diego spent more than $46 million in firefighter overtime last year, according to recently-released public compensation data, and that total is expected to increase until additional staff are trained and hired in years to come.

Data from the California State Controller’s Office and Transparent California, an open-government group that collects and publishes public salaries, show the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, which includes lifeguard staff, employed roughly 1,500 workers in 2018.

Excluding benefits, their total annual pay averaged about $90,500, but nearly 700 employees received at least $100,000 in total wages, due in part to six-figure overtime payouts.

Transparent California data show 70 city workers received $100,000 or more in overtime alone last year. Sixty-one of them were fire-rescue employees.

Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-07-26/san-diego-firefighter-overtime-exceeds-46-million

While I understand the caution of adding new employees to the payroll and paying pension benefits to them, it appears that it has reached the point that new employees need to be hired. Having firefighters work so much overtime can lead to mistakes that endangers public safety.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. On the plus side, those firefighters earned a fuck of a lot of money.

I'm speaking as someone who worked a LOT of involuntary overtime. I was a ticket agent at National Airport in Washington DC from 1969-1979. If flights were cancelled or delayed, we stayed on the job. It wasn't fun, to say the least, but the overtime pay helped a lot.

[Mr.Bill]

2. Firemen in California

are paid an obscene amount of money and get a fantastic pension. My brother-in-law is a retired fireman. He retired at 53 and he gets a check every month for over $10,000. And that's after taxes are deducted.