16 ms·

San Francisco Troubles – 19,000 Highly Paid City Employees Earned $150k

76 points by RestlessMind 6y ago

RestlessMind 6y ago
Interesting paragraph: We found truck drivers loaded up with $262,898; city painters making $270,190; firefighters earning $316,306; and plumbing supervisors cleaning up $348,291 every year. One deputy sheriff earned $574,595 last year – including $315,896 in overtime.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- _delirium 6y ago
  Regarding the example of a cop who made more in overtime than his base salary: This has gotten very common in the past few decades. Police doing huge amounts of overtime with almost no approval needed (or even basic oversight that this is useful/actual work) is a problem in a lot of jurisdictions. The original idea is that you shouldn't need to get special approval for a public-safety emergency. But in practice, it's become a norm in many places, with police resisting any attempt to decrease routine use of overtime and limit it to emergencies.
  - stubtoe 6y ago
    Interesting. Almost sounds like we should Defund The Police. But who am I to say.
  - GoodJokes 6y ago
    Defund the police
spectramax 6y ago
As someone who moved into this city, after a year I see nothing good about San Francisco. It’s a shithole with every well off person in their little castles of crumbling houses that are worth $2.5M. As a staunch democrat, I always wonder - why are cities in Red states such as Austin, Houston, Phoenix, Raleigh, Dallas have so much better infrastructure than Portland, Seattle, LA and San Francisco? Pot holes everywhere and homelessness out of control.
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  I don't think single party control is a good thing anywhere. I lean Democrat like most of us here, but I find myself avoiding deep blue cities. A lot of Democrats are just as selfish, Republicans tend to be more open about it. Deep blue cities have the same corruption and social segregation as red ones do. A lot of "hot" cities outside SV are Democratic mayors in Republican states. The mix keeps corruption low and forces compromises. The homeless issue is a city scale prisoners dilemma. By offering better services you attract homeless. Homeless people aren't stupid and will move to places that suit their lifestyle better, just like we do. The only way to avoid it is better policies on a national level. Otherwise cities that treat homeless better just become a magnet for them.
  - nickpinkston 6y ago
    The "homeless people move to SF thing" is significant, but often overstated: "[The] survey showed that 71% of San Francisco’s street people had formerly been housed in the city." http://www.housethehomeless.org/myths-about-homelessness/ http://www.housethehomeless.org/myths-about-homelessness/
    - throwaway189262 6y ago
      Housed for how long? It's common for people with mental and substance abuse issues to move in and out of housing transiently because they frequently lose their jobs. There's a recent example of numerous homeless coming to the city because the mayor promised housing during corona https://abc7news.com/homeless-in-san-francisco-coronavirus-sf-help/6158835/ https://abc7news.com/homeless-in-san-francisco-coronavirus-s...
      - hindsightbias 6y ago
        There was a time you could do time or lose a job and come back to a SRO unit. Not like anyone warned there was a problem: https://thebolditalic.com/life-inside-sf-s-vanishing-single-resident-occupancies-the-bold-italic-san-francisco-20bf7aa0b3c8 https://thebolditalic.com/life-inside-sf-s-vanishing-single-...
_jn 6y ago
Hate when people earn enough to live in the city they work in.
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  You should rather hate when NIMBYism increases prices to benefit the generationally rich.
shubhamjain 6y ago
That's one reason I advocate better accountability before shouting "raise taxes on rich." Want to see another example? Number of fires being reported is nearly 1/3rd of what was in 1970s. And yet the number of firefighters on payroll has only gone up [1]. Yes, firefighters do respond to medical emergencies but most of the times it's redundant. "Some people — including Tabarrok and other libertarian economists — think that dispatching huge trucks loaded with firefighters to respond to every medical call made to 911 is not an ideal situation. 'Typically, they'll get there a minute or two before an ambulance does, and in some cases they start treatment,' Tabarrok says. 'In my view, it's mostly redundant. Other people will say that getting there earlier can save a life, but most of the time it has no bearing whatsoever.'" [1]: https://www.vox.com/2014/10/30/7079547/fire-firefighter-decline-medical https://www.vox.com/2014/10/30/7079547/fire-firefighter-decl...
- centimeter 6y ago
  Buddy of mine broke his arm and the fire department showed up in a fire truck. I wonder if his insurance had to pay for that.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Why not? Otherwise the firefighters would just play landhockey and BBC in the wait for fires like where I live.
  - refurb 6y ago
    They are paying them anyways, so I see your point. But I believe they bill for each response as well.
    - rightbyte 6y ago
      Ye obviously it is possible to screw up even a good idea with billing for redundant communal emergency resources.
tehwebguy 6y ago
I’m sure there is plenty of waste but also maybe the city doesn’t want every single one of their employees to have a multi-hour commute each way?
mixologic 6y ago
Maybe take every number in this article and divide it by 2.7 Cost of living in San Francisco is roughly 270% of the national average.
- centimeter 6y ago
  Most people don’t spend 100% of their income on CoL. If you make $150k in SF, you have more surplus than if you make $50k in Madison (unless you really suck at budgeting).
  - throwaway1777 6y ago
    That’s true over a certain amount. But 50k and a 200k mortgage will get you a lot more in Madison than 150k and a 600k mortgage in SF.
    - defnotashton2 6y ago
      You don't get to expect a mortgage in the city.. It's a city.
      - oarsinsync 6y ago
        So you don’t get to adjust based on CoL, because you don’t spend all your money and have more disposable income. You don’t get to compare on housing, because you live in a city. So meanwhile city dwellers have more disposable income, who continue to dispose of more income on rent, while their counterparts outside the city get to invest their money in their own property, which they can later sell for a fat return, while continuing to begrudge city dwellers for making a few more bucks in disposable income in the short term? Living in a city has its upsides and downsides. One of the upsides is higher pay. One of the downsides is pissing away lots of that higher pay paying someone else’s mortgage instead of your own.
        imtringued 6y ago
        Yeah, the truth is that no matter what lifestyle you choose, you'll have to give up something in the process. "City dwellers" get more money but live in smaller housing. "Town dwellers" get less money but live in bigger housing. However, one thing is certain. Once you have children you'll need bigger housing. A lot of hyper competitive cities aren't very welcoming to families.
tmpz22 6y ago
@Mods the actual title is "19,000 Highly Compensated City Employees Earned $150,000+ In Pay & Perks" and there is a later quote of "18,759 highly compensated employees from each bringing home pay packages worth $150,000 (or more) annually." It seems to me that the current title editorialized the post to seem like its $150k+ in salary when in fact it seems to be factoring pension and other elements.
- RestlessMind 6y ago
  It didn't fit in the title length guidelines for HN and I had to shave off a few characters. Mind suggesting a better paraphrasing of the entire title?
  - tmpz22 6y ago
    Perhaps "San Francisco Troubles - 19,000 City Employees earned $150k in Pay & Perks"? Given that "Highly paid" is subjective and a source of contention even in this thread.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Paying these people a high salary seems fine to me. Good on them for collective bargaining to not have to commute half their lives. Paying them an equally high pension just makes me feel sad. Here I am running the rat race to save enough to retire, but I'm not making much more than they are, and including retirement, making much less (the retiring fire chief will make more than $300k/year for the rest of her life?!?). Maybe I should have gone into public service.
- jMyles 6y ago
  > a high salary seems fine to me...collective bargaining... Is that what you see in this story? To me, it just seems like overtime abuse.
  - thelean12 6y ago
    If a tech worker has half their compensation in bonuses and equity, is that bonus and equity abuse? It could just be a different compensation structure to get fair pay. That being said, I don't want to claim to know what a "fair" compensation is here. $80k, $100k, $150k, doesn't matter. If $150k is too high, then fix the compensation structure. Don't blame it on "overtime abuse" or some other reason that blames the workers for getting as much as they can from their job.
    - bootcampwhere 6y ago
      Just for example. I work for the US government as a contractor. I get overtime if I work after 5pm or weekends. Working Sunday, 5-9pm, my rate is 3x normal. Plus, I make my own hours. So naturally, my work day is 3-9pm m-f and 5-9 sat/sun. I'm abusing the system and everyone where I am does the same if they can. I tell everyone, the us government is broken. It literally doesn't work and hasn't for a long time. We're just running on fumes at this point and it's a matter of time before the shit hits the fan with hyper-inflatiom.
    - jMyles 6y ago
      > blames the workers for getting as much as they can from their job. Is that what you think I'm doing? Is there any evidence that "the workers" are getting as much as they can? It seems that a small percentage of workers, mostly in positions of power over other workers, are gaming the system in a way that does not benefit the public they're supposed to serve.
jake_morrison 6y ago
The biggest problem here is the overtime. Instead of employing full time people, they milk the system to generate more overtime hours.
- pas 6y ago
  What's the total cost of an employee that earns 150K or 200K in CA? Usually the argument is that hiring one more employee would be more costly, but I'm not familiar with the exact numbers.
havelhovel 6y ago
I wish the lower and middle classes would stop begrudging each other’s thousands and start focusing on the millions and billions being raked in by corporations and the rich.
- refurb 6y ago
  I don't care what corporations pay their people, that's not my money. I care what the gov't pays people, because that's my money.
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    But when the corporations don't pay employees a living wage and they end up on welfare, that's your money too.
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      Is there a scientific study that shows a causation, or at least a correlation, between X and Y: X: "start focusing on the millions and billions being raked in by corporations and the rich" and Y: "corporations don't pay employees a living wage and they end up on welfare"
      - WalterSear 6y ago
        > Walmart's low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published by Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups. https://www.worldhunger.org/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-public-assistance https://www.worldhunger.org/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxp...
        refurb 6y ago
        A progressive group blames Walmart? No surprise there. I guess the alternative is what? Get rid of Walmart jobs? Will people be better off then?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gerbler 6y ago
> On average, the city’s 44,526 employees received pay and perks costing taxpayers $131,335 apiece. Four out of ten – 18,749 city workers – received a compensation package exceeding $150,000 per year. The style of summarizing this data is not good. Taking some arbitrary high-bar and then averaging it, is twisting the data to their purpose. There clearly are high salaries in there, but saying X truck-drivers earned an average of Y, when you exclude all of the low-paid ones is just misrepresentation of the data.
hackeraccount 6y ago
Public sector unions are toxic.

76 points by RestlessMind 6y ago

Interesting paragraph: We found truck drivers loaded up with $262,898; city painters making $270,190; firefighters earning $316,306; and plumbing supervisors cleaning up $348,291 every year. One deputy sheriff earned $574,595 last year – including $315,896 in overtime.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 6y ago
Regarding the example of a cop who made more in overtime than his base salary: This has gotten very common in the past few decades. Police doing huge amounts of overtime with almost no approval needed (or even basic oversight that this is useful/actual work) is a problem in a lot of jurisdictions. The original idea is that you shouldn't need to get special approval for a public-safety emergency. But in practice, it's become a norm in many places, with police resisting any attempt to decrease routine use of overtime and limit it to emergencies.
- stubtoe 6y ago
  Interesting. Almost sounds like we should Defund The Police. But who am I to say.
- GoodJokes 6y ago
  Defund the police

spectramax 6y ago

As someone who moved into this city, after a year I see nothing good about San Francisco. It’s a shithole with every well off person in their little castles of crumbling houses that are worth $2.5M. As a staunch democrat, I always wonder - why are cities in Red states such as Austin, Houston, Phoenix, Raleigh, Dallas have so much better infrastructure than Portland, Seattle, LA and San Francisco? Pot holes everywhere and homelessness out of control.

throwaway189262 6y ago
I don't think single party control is a good thing anywhere. I lean Democrat like most of us here, but I find myself avoiding deep blue cities. A lot of Democrats are just as selfish, Republicans tend to be more open about it. Deep blue cities have the same corruption and social segregation as red ones do. A lot of "hot" cities outside SV are Democratic mayors in Republican states. The mix keeps corruption low and forces compromises. The homeless issue is a city scale prisoners dilemma. By offering better services you attract homeless. Homeless people aren't stupid and will move to places that suit their lifestyle better, just like we do. The only way to avoid it is better policies on a national level. Otherwise cities that treat homeless better just become a magnet for them.
- nickpinkston 6y ago
  The "homeless people move to SF thing" is significant, but often overstated: "[The] survey showed that 71% of San Francisco’s street people had formerly been housed in the city." http://www.housethehomeless.org/myths-about-homelessness/ http://www.housethehomeless.org/myths-about-homelessness/
  - throwaway189262 6y ago
    Housed for how long? It's common for people with mental and substance abuse issues to move in and out of housing transiently because they frequently lose their jobs. There's a recent example of numerous homeless coming to the city because the mayor promised housing during corona https://abc7news.com/homeless-in-san-francisco-coronavirus-sf-help/6158835/ https://abc7news.com/homeless-in-san-francisco-coronavirus-s...
    - hindsightbias 6y ago
      There was a time you could do time or lose a job and come back to a SRO unit. Not like anyone warned there was a problem: https://thebolditalic.com/life-inside-sf-s-vanishing-single-resident-occupancies-the-bold-italic-san-francisco-20bf7aa0b3c8 https://thebolditalic.com/life-inside-sf-s-vanishing-single-...

_jn 6y ago

Hate when people earn enough to live in the city they work in.

cscurmudgeon 6y ago
You should rather hate when NIMBYism increases prices to benefit the generationally rich.

shubhamjain 6y ago

That's one reason I advocate better accountability before shouting "raise taxes on rich." Want to see another example? Number of fires being reported is nearly 1/3rd of what was in 1970s. And yet the number of firefighters on payroll has only gone up [1]. Yes, firefighters do respond to medical emergencies but most of the times it's redundant. "Some people — including Tabarrok and other libertarian economists — think that dispatching huge trucks loaded with firefighters to respond to every medical call made to 911 is not an ideal situation. 'Typically, they'll get there a minute or two before an ambulance does, and in some cases they start treatment,' Tabarrok says. 'In my view, it's mostly redundant. Other people will say that getting there earlier can save a life, but most of the time it has no bearing whatsoever.'" [1]: https://www.vox.com/2014/10/30/7079547/fire-firefighter-decline-medical https://www.vox.com/2014/10/30/7079547/fire-firefighter-decl...

centimeter 6y ago
Buddy of mine broke his arm and the fire department showed up in a fire truck. I wonder if his insurance had to pay for that.
rightbyte 6y ago
Why not? Otherwise the firefighters would just play landhockey and BBC in the wait for fires like where I live.
- refurb 6y ago
  They are paying them anyways, so I see your point. But I believe they bill for each response as well.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    Ye obviously it is possible to screw up even a good idea with billing for redundant communal emergency resources.

tehwebguy 6y ago

I’m sure there is plenty of waste but also maybe the city doesn’t want every single one of their employees to have a multi-hour commute each way?

mixologic 6y ago

Maybe take every number in this article and divide it by 2.7 Cost of living in San Francisco is roughly 270% of the national average.

centimeter 6y ago
Most people don’t spend 100% of their income on CoL. If you make $150k in SF, you have more surplus than if you make $50k in Madison (unless you really suck at budgeting).
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  That’s true over a certain amount. But 50k and a 200k mortgage will get you a lot more in Madison than 150k and a 600k mortgage in SF.
  - defnotashton2 6y ago
    You don't get to expect a mortgage in the city.. It's a city.
    - oarsinsync 6y ago
      So you don’t get to adjust based on CoL, because you don’t spend all your money and have more disposable income. You don’t get to compare on housing, because you live in a city. So meanwhile city dwellers have more disposable income, who continue to dispose of more income on rent, while their counterparts outside the city get to invest their money in their own property, which they can later sell for a fat return, while continuing to begrudge city dwellers for making a few more bucks in disposable income in the short term? Living in a city has its upsides and downsides. One of the upsides is higher pay. One of the downsides is pissing away lots of that higher pay paying someone else’s mortgage instead of your own.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        Yeah, the truth is that no matter what lifestyle you choose, you'll have to give up something in the process. "City dwellers" get more money but live in smaller housing. "Town dwellers" get less money but live in bigger housing. However, one thing is certain. Once you have children you'll need bigger housing. A lot of hyper competitive cities aren't very welcoming to families.

tmpz22 6y ago

@Mods the actual title is "19,000 Highly Compensated City Employees Earned $150,000+ In Pay & Perks" and there is a later quote of "18,759 highly compensated employees from each bringing home pay packages worth $150,000 (or more) annually." It seems to me that the current title editorialized the post to seem like its $150k+ in salary when in fact it seems to be factoring pension and other elements.

RestlessMind 6y ago
It didn't fit in the title length guidelines for HN and I had to shave off a few characters. Mind suggesting a better paraphrasing of the entire title?
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Perhaps "San Francisco Troubles - 19,000 City Employees earned $150k in Pay & Perks"? Given that "Highly paid" is subjective and a source of contention even in this thread.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

Paying these people a high salary seems fine to me. Good on them for collective bargaining to not have to commute half their lives. Paying them an equally high pension just makes me feel sad. Here I am running the rat race to save enough to retire, but I'm not making much more than they are, and including retirement, making much less (the retiring fire chief will make more than $300k/year for the rest of her life?!?). Maybe I should have gone into public service.

jMyles 6y ago
> a high salary seems fine to me...collective bargaining... Is that what you see in this story? To me, it just seems like overtime abuse.
- thelean12 6y ago
  If a tech worker has half their compensation in bonuses and equity, is that bonus and equity abuse? It could just be a different compensation structure to get fair pay. That being said, I don't want to claim to know what a "fair" compensation is here. $80k, $100k, $150k, doesn't matter. If $150k is too high, then fix the compensation structure. Don't blame it on "overtime abuse" or some other reason that blames the workers for getting as much as they can from their job.
  - bootcampwhere 6y ago
    Just for example. I work for the US government as a contractor. I get overtime if I work after 5pm or weekends. Working Sunday, 5-9pm, my rate is 3x normal. Plus, I make my own hours. So naturally, my work day is 3-9pm m-f and 5-9 sat/sun. I'm abusing the system and everyone where I am does the same if they can. I tell everyone, the us government is broken. It literally doesn't work and hasn't for a long time. We're just running on fumes at this point and it's a matter of time before the shit hits the fan with hyper-inflatiom.
  - jMyles 6y ago
    > blames the workers for getting as much as they can from their job. Is that what you think I'm doing? Is there any evidence that "the workers" are getting as much as they can? It seems that a small percentage of workers, mostly in positions of power over other workers, are gaming the system in a way that does not benefit the public they're supposed to serve.

jake_morrison 6y ago

The biggest problem here is the overtime. Instead of employing full time people, they milk the system to generate more overtime hours.

pas 6y ago
What's the total cost of an employee that earns 150K or 200K in CA? Usually the argument is that hiring one more employee would be more costly, but I'm not familiar with the exact numbers.

havelhovel 6y ago

I wish the lower and middle classes would stop begrudging each other’s thousands and start focusing on the millions and billions being raked in by corporations and the rich.

refurb 6y ago
I don't care what corporations pay their people, that's not my money. I care what the gov't pays people, because that's my money.
- Johnny555 6y ago
  But when the corporations don't pay employees a living wage and they end up on welfare, that's your money too.
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    Is there a scientific study that shows a causation, or at least a correlation, between X and Y: X: "start focusing on the millions and billions being raked in by corporations and the rich" and Y: "corporations don't pay employees a living wage and they end up on welfare"
    - WalterSear 6y ago
      > Walmart's low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published by Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups. https://www.worldhunger.org/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-public-assistance https://www.worldhunger.org/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxp...
      - refurb 6y ago
        A progressive group blames Walmart? No surprise there. I guess the alternative is what? Get rid of Walmart jobs? Will people be better off then?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gerbler 6y ago

> On average, the city’s 44,526 employees received pay and perks costing taxpayers $131,335 apiece. Four out of ten – 18,749 city workers – received a compensation package exceeding $150,000 per year. The style of summarizing this data is not good. Taking some arbitrary high-bar and then averaging it, is twisting the data to their purpose. There clearly are high salaries in there, but saying X truck-drivers earned an average of Y, when you exclude all of the low-paid ones is just misrepresentation of the data.

hackeraccount 6y ago

Public sector unions are toxic.