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Posted on 12/26/2001 3:40:19 PM PST by Sungirl

BUFFALO'S OUTRAGEOUS SALARIES

It's the formula that's strangling Buffalo:

Public employees taking all the overtime they can get.

Dozens making more than the top elected official; some officers pulling down more than $100,000 a year. And one assistant chief retiring with a $171,500 golden parachute.

But this time, the numbers aren't coming out of Buffalo. They're from the area's larger and more affluent suburbs.

An Amherst highway crew chief hauled in $86,000 last year - more than any town supervisor or some suburban police chief earned.

In West Seneca, the man who catches dogs made close to $60,000 - or $7,000 more than his brother-in-law, who happens to be his boss, Supervisor Paul T. Clark.

In the Town of Tonawanda, several water maintenance workers pumped up their base pay with hefty overtime, one of them turning a $40,000 job into a $74,000 paycheck.

And in Cheektowaga, where the average street police officer took in $67,000 during the year, the captains and lieutenants averaged $105,000.

"We have to try and find ways to control the costs," said Cheektowaga Supervisor Dennis H. Gabryszak. "Some people say every cop you see on the road, with benefits, is $100,000."

While suburban critics are quick to point fingers at Buffalo's numerous payroll excesses, a Buffalo News analysis of municipal payrolls for 2000 found a number of suburbs with their own payroll headaches.

The News reviewed 2000 year-end payrolls for full-time workers in Amherst, Cheektowaga, the Town of Tonawanda, Lancaster, Hamburg, West Seneca and Orchard Park as well as the City of Buffalo. As in the case of the city, the review found most of the top suburban salaries went to police.

But other suburban departments also inflate the public payrolls.

According to both city and suburban officials, labor agreements, especially police contracts, often tie their hands and inflate overtime and other costs.

In Lancaster and Cheektowaga, for example, contract language encourages overtime by requiring supervisors to grant every request for a personal leave - regardless of how many other officers are off that day. Officers get five days of personal leave annually in Cheektowaga; six in Lancaster.

And in Lancaster's case, the department is also contractually bound to maintain a minimum number of cars on patrol around the clock, so officers often must be brought in at time-and-a-half to cover for those being paid to take the day off.

"Minimum manpower requirements create mandatory overtime," explained Amherst's assistant chief, Ronald H. Hagelberger.

Such contract rules help explain why virtually every police officer in Lancaster and Cheektowaga gets overtime, and why their checks are heftier than in communities such as the Town of Tonawanda, Orchard Park and Amherst, which do not have the same contractual handcuffs.

For example, while police overtime averages $2,500 per officer in Amherst, the average jumps to $5,500 in Cheektowaga. On average, cops grossed $65,000 in Amherst, compared with $72,000 in Cheektowaga.

Police officials say special enforcement programs such as drunken-driving details and truck inspections also contribute to overtime. In Cheektowaga, for example, much of the department's overtime comes during such details, which are funded by state and federal grants. Officers volunteer to work the assignments on overtime.

All this overtime represents a time bomb for taxpayers, because police and other municipal workers are able to increase their pensions by accepting all the overtime available in their final working years.

But that's just the start of the contractual issues that jack up police costs in Cheektowaga - where officials increased town property taxes by 10 percent this year.

Unlike other police departments, Cheektowaga's puts few restrictions on the amount of unused sick time, compensatory time and vacation time an officer can bank. Officers also are allowed to convert some of this unused time into cash at the end of each year. But the big expense comes when the officer retires.

Cheektowaga permits retiring officers to sell back all the time they accumulated during their careers.

As a result, 14 Cheektowaga officers received more than $100,000 in 2000 - twice as many $100,000-plus salaries as the much larger Buffalo police force paid out in the same period.

And Cheektowaga's assistant chief, John F. Schaller, retired with $171,544 after working only a few months last year. Schaller did it by selling back his unused benefits accumulated during a 30-year career, giving him the largest paycheck in the communities reviewed by The News.

High salaries were also found in Hamburg, which allows officers to sell up to 300 days of accumulated sick time at retirement. Thus, five officers - three of them retirees - earned more than $100,000 in 2000. One of the officers got an approximately $110,000 retirement package that included a $76,000 sick-time buy-back.

While no departments outside police rival those salaries in suburban governments, other suburban employees are, nonetheless, bringing in salaries far above their base pay.

Amherst and West Seneca

In Amherst, the biggest overtime check last year went to highway crew chief Patrick J. Walsh, now retired. That extra $18,977 helped increase Walsh's gross pay to $86,869, or $21,000 more than Supervisor Susan J. Grelick made during the year.

And former Deputy Highway Supervisor James R. Binner is finding it more lucrative working at a blue-collar job that offers overtime. Binner resigned his $61,000 management position in January, stepping down to a $43,600 job as a general crew chief in the parks.

This year, counting overtime, Binner will earn more than $70,000.

In the town Recreation Department, meanwhile, 10 workers who maintain the Pepsi Center and its four skating rinks made an average of more than $10,000 in overtime, with one reaching $18,400. The overtime represented one-third - and in some cases even more - of their average base salary of $34,600.

It's a similar story in West Seneca, where William J. O'Neil appears to be the best-paid dogcatcher in Erie County.

In addition to dogs, O'Neil collared more than $19,000 in overtime, boosting his gross pay to $57,500 - at least $15,000 more than his peers in nearby suburbs.

While other communities might hire part-timers to help out on weekends, West Seneca has been dissatisfied with part-time help, so O'Neil is often called out on Saturdays and Sundays on overtime, Supervisor Clark said.

"We think we offer superior service," Clark said.

Clark added that O'Neil was hired because the Town Board was impressed with his job qualifications - not his family ties.

"The same practices are in place as before, when the other guy was there," Clark said. "He is called in at the discretion of police. It has nothing to do with me."

In fact, O'Neil isn't the only West Seneca employee cashing in.

Largely because of overtime, 99 West Seneca workers - from laborers and auto mechanics to police officers and dispatchers - made more than Clark, whose $50,000 salary makes him one of the area's lowest-paid full-time supervisors.

Town of Tonawanda

In the Town of Tonawanda, meanwhile, just about everyone working at the golf courses and parks raked in $5,000 in overtime. Officials explained that workers are very busy.

But apparently no one in town was busier than several maintenance employees who make after-hours service calls for the town's Water Department. One of them took in $40,000 in regular pay and $26,500 in overtime. His total salary, $73,728, was higher than any town supervisor's that year.

According to Department Director John Camilleri, four of his employees take turns making after-hours service calls and responding to waterline breaks and other emergencies.

Towns aren't critical

While such high overtime and $100,000 salaries evoke criticism within and of Buffalo city government, there's less apparent concern about salary levels in the more well-heeled suburbs.

In the Town of Tonawanda, for example, Supervisor Ronald H. Moline said he wasn't familiar with details about overtime in his town, but he added, "I have full confidence in our department heads and the way they manage their resources."

Amherst Supervisor Grelick added that overtime "has never been to a point where it's been excessive" in her town.

In fact, Amherst uses such an obsolete computer system to run its payroll that critics within the administration say it's difficult for the town to track overtime throughout the year.

That could explain why Amherst Highway Superintendent Thomas J. Wik was unaware of the overtime some people in his department received.

"Wow," Wik said, when he heard one of his highway crew chiefs took in nearly $19,000 in overtime last year.

That's not to say there aren't any attempts being made to control suburban payrolls.

In Amherst, Recreation Director Anne E. Schiferle "inherited a problem," said Deputy Supervisor Michael G. McGuire.

"There were some games being played" by Pepsi Center workers, he said.

"We expect everybody to have a little bit of overtime, but that's too much," McGuire said, referring to $18,400 in overtime paid to one working crew chief.

Cutting overtime

Schiferle said she has already cut back on overtime and changed schedules for maintenance workers.

"They pretty much had carte blanche to make out their own schedules . . . but we've done some cutbacks," she said.

In Hamburg, meanwhile, the town hopes to negotiate some changes in the police contract to reduce sick-time buyback costs, and Cheektowaga Supervisor Gabryszak wants further reform, as well as additional hiring, in the Police Department to reduce costs.

"We have a very good Police Department, but it is also expensive," Gabryszak said.

Police overtime has prompted some political squabbling in Cheektowaga, just as it has in the city and elsewhere.

Council Member Jeff Swiatek, who heads Cheektowaga's negotiating committee, for example, said he's satisfied with overtime and staffing levels in the police force.

"Our department is very efficient and lean," he said.

Swiatek also contends it often makes more sense to pay overtime than to hire more employees.

Others gave the same argument, including West Seneca's Clark, who says hiring more full-time workers means adding more fixed costs, such as health insurance and retirement benefits.

"We try to do with less people," Clark said, adding that at peak demand periods, "we would rather pay overtime."

"It is less expensive than hiring more people year-round," he said.

News researcher Andrew Bailey contributed to this report.

e-mail: tdolan@buffnews.com

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