Farm worker OT bill awaits verdict from Gov. Brown

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. But more importantly, happy second-to-last day of the legislative session.

A big ticket item was crossed off the list Monday when a bill expanding overtime pay for farm workers passed the Assembly. It now heads to the governor for a final verdict.

The bill would, over the course of a few years, bring the overtime structure for farm workers in line with that of many other professions by giving overtime past eight hours in a day, where currently the threshold is at 10 hours, and over 40 hours in a week, where it’s currently at 60 hours.

Some members opposed on procedural grounds. Assembly rules prohibit a measure from being reintroduced if it had already been defeated during that legislative session — the same measure was defeated in the Assembly earlier this year.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

• “An Aug. 17 California appeals court ruling rejected a public employee union’s claim that its members had a right to “pension spiking,” which the court described as “various stratagems and ploys to inflate their income and retirement benefits.” Public employees often will pad their final salary total with vacation leave, bonuses and “special pay” categories to inflate the pension benefits they receive for the rest of their lives,” reports CalWatchdog.
• “State lawmakers passed a bill Monday to add mandatory prison sentences for certain sexual assaults – a measure inspired by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge’s decision not to sentence a Stanford University student to prison in a high-profile case this year,” writes the Los Angeles Times.
• “California lawmakers’ response to the controversial series of videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood breaking the law has alienated some liberal allies of the organization, which is now negotiating changes to save its bill in the final days of the session,” writes The Sacramento Bee.
• “The state’s plan to build an initial stretch of high-speed rail line, from San Jose to a map point in the midst of Central Valley farmland, came under renewed attack at an oversight hearing Monday,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Who will Gov. Jerry Brown believe: the Mothers Against Drunk Driving or his own Department of Motor Vehicles? Brown will have to choose when deciding whether to sign Senate Bill 1046, a measure that would require drivers convicted of DUI to purchase and install “ignition interlock” devices in their vehicles. CalWatchdog has more.

Assembly:

• In at 10 a.m.

Senate:

• In at 2 p.m.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced for today. Will attend 20th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit on Wednesday.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

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Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin

Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin released an audit on Tuesday outlining excessive overtime use in the Department of Transportation. The controller’s office received an anonymous tip from its Fraud Waste & Abuse Hotline and was able to “identify four supervisors in the Traffic Paint and Sign Section who received at least $70,000 in overtime pay during FY 2013-14.” The findings also included a superintendent that received “$155,319 in overtime on top of his normal $78,000 yearly earnings—effectively tripling his salary.”

“This report should put everyone on notice,” said Controller Galperin. “We are watching overtime and we will not permit it to be abused.” The release continued:

[blockquote style=”3″]In FY 2013-14, 93% of Traffic Paint and Sign employees received overtime. Citywide, among full-time employees excluding LAPD, LAFD and DOT, the number was 49%.

Among the other findings:

• Super-human work schedules: One employee was paid for 261 hours during a two-week period. He claimed to work 10 18-hour days and 4 days of at least 16 hours.
• Doing the jobs of two full-timers: 30 out of 67 Traffic Paint and Sign employees, including supervisors, claimed more than 1,000 hours of overtime in FY 2013-14; seven of the 30 claimed to work at least 2,000 hours of overtime. (A full-time employee is paid for 2,080 hours per year. 2,000 hours of overtime in a year equates to, on average, working more than 38 hours of overtime every week of the year. An employee who does this is constantly working double shifts, doing the job of two full-timers.)
• The Tab: Traffic Paint and Sign employee overtime cost the City $3.3 million dollars in FY 2013-14. The average overtime pay for each Traffic Paint and Sign employee was $48,100, compared to $8,377 for other departments, excluding LAPD, LAFD and DOT. [/blockquote]

Several California firefighters managed to triple their base salaries by working tons of overtime last year, according to competing data on city worker pay released Monday by the state controller and the California Policy Center.

The phenomenon of rocketing overtime, according to the reports, hit its apex in Richmond, where one city firefighter had base pay of $113,892 and overtime of $279,105. His total compensation in 2013, including the value of health and pension benefits: $508,893.

This information comes thanks to outgoing Controller John Chiang’s website listing all state compensation, Government Compensation in California. He just was elected the state’s treasurer.

Before that site, it would take journalists days or weeks to dig out such information — if they could find it at all. Now anyone can do it with a few mouse clicks.

More absurdly high pay, all funded by taxpayers:

The pattern was repeated statewide to varying degrees, with one local firefighter doubling his base pay with overtime. Huntington Beach Fire Captain Darren Newton had base pay of $110,866, overtime of $127,866 and total compensation (including other pay and benefits) of $361,382.

While Orange County cities have ranked high on best-paid lists in years past – former Buena Park City Manager Rick Warsinski was No. 1 in 2012, with total comp of $545,394 – they failed to crack the Top 60 this year, according to Transparent California.

Laguna Hills City Manager Bruce Channing was No. 1 in the county, with total pay and benefits worth $383,082. That put him at No. 62 statewide, out of nearly 215,000 workers.

The No. 1 spot belonged to Susan Loftus, then-city manager of San Mateo, with total comp of $567,106.

However, this isn’t being done without a cost – over the past two years, the CHP has been implementing overlapping 12-hour shifts, reported the Bee. I’d like to see the overtime hours for the CHP compared with the increased number of traffic citations – I am betting that both overtime pay and traffic tickets are on the rise. And I’d like to see just how many of those tickets are issued on time-and-a-half or double-time, and who is authorizing that overtime.

“The California Highway Patrol is handing out more traffic citations than it did a few years ago, and that has generated tens of millions of dollars in new revenue for state and local government,” the Bee reported, using data from the CHP.

Once again, the working class and lower-income folks are paying the bill. And advocates for drivers say traffic enforcement all over the state is on the rise.

If this is true, then according to the police departments and CHP which claim they have had to cut staff with the budget crisis, they are achieving this revenue windfall with fewer employees, and probably could have done this all along.

In Oakland, the police department has learned to do more with less. “Overall,the department’s officer ranks shrank from 837 in November 2008 to 660 now due to layoffs and attrition,” the story said. And, as cities rely more on red-light cameras to do the work for them, violations have increased.

But, a lack of enforcement of laws is one of the biggest gripes voters have – not that we want more traffic citations, but thousands of laws are passed and never enforced — that is, unless revenue is attached, and even then it happens erratically, vindictively and resentfully.

Police departments around the state have been quite dramatic about budget cuts, as if public safety shouldn’t have to tighten up budgets the way everyone else is forced to do. There’s just as much waste in public safety as in other government agencies.

The CHP and other police officials claim that their sole concern is safety.  And they report that they are currently putting more officers on the street, despite cutting staff.

Why haven’t police done this all along if safety is really the primary concern? While the number of expired registrations and unpaid tickets may have gone up during the economic crisis, bad drivers didn’t just increase when the budget crisis hit California.

Revenue is a powerful motive – the state wants more, police departments want more, and employees want overtime. It’s a win-win… for everyone but drivers.

APR. 1, 2011