11 ms·

Bart employee salaries CSV

36 points by mariusz331 13y ago

arjn 13y ago
Very interesting. How come there are a bunch of people with $0 base salary ? Are those contractors, interns ? Also, some of those low-base employees seem to have very high employer contributions to medical/dental/vision plans. How does that work ?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Some are explicitly called "intern" or "PT" (part time), some very much look like probable contractors, but I don't know how contractors end up with contributions to insurance/pension/etc, and others I see no obvious reason for such numbers at all. Conceivably some of it could be attributable to oddities of recently-retired/fired/resigned employees, but I'm sure not all of it. I think this dataset is impossible to make meaningful sense of without much more information on BART's employment practices, possibly wider laws/regulations on California public employees, and more specific information about individuals.
- randartie 13y ago
  Perhaps they're hourly.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    I believe almost all of the employees on this list are hourly. To pick a semi-random example from the list, a "train operator" with $60,257 in "salary" and $55,453 in overtime is not a "salaried" employee like most of the people on HN are used to.
stephanerangaya 13y ago
It'd have been nice to anonymize this data. I know it's publicly available but we should respect people's privacy. I don't think having people's name adds anything interesting to this data set.
- maxcan 13y ago
  In general, I'd agree. However, considering the collective action the union has taken disrupting a vital service, I think they forfeit a bit of privacy in this case. They are public servants who are holding the public hostage.
  - georgespencer 13y ago
    Are they all members of the unions / striking?
    - pathy 13y ago
      I don't know exactly how it works in USA, but generally if the union decides to go on strike, you don't have much choice as an individual member.
      - josh2600 13y ago
        You have the choice to vote. The union voted to strike. Not everyone voted for it, but enough did to initiate the strike. It's usually a fairly unanimous thing. Source: once upon a time, long, long ago, I was on the executive board of a union that may or may not have voted to strike.
        spikels 13y ago
        The percentage of members of the two BART unions that voted for the strike is also public. It was not close. SEIU 98.5% ATU 99.9% http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-workers-vote-to-authorize-a-strike-4623305.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-workers-vote-to-a...
        derleth 13y ago
        > The percentage of members of the two BART unions that voted for the strike is also public. It was not close. Those numbers (upwards of 90%) look like the numbers won by dictators in rigged elections. Who monitors the union voting process?
spamizbad 13y ago
Wow, some of these public servants make as much money as a 19 year old college dropout in Silicon Valley.
- readme 13y ago
  Did you mean the high end, or the low end? A college dropout can make a killing in Silicon Valley, if they are also: a talented software developer. OTOH, some of the other dropouts might end up working as BART train operators, who seem to make between 12 and 15k/yr, which is likely for full time, in a city where it costs about 1/4 of that just to scrape by on a monthly basis. It is not right to employ people at a wage that they cannot possibly subsist on. These people all ended up as bart train operators for one reason or another. Maybe they were lazy. Maybe they got shafted in life. Maybe they're dumb. But does that mean they should be paid a substandard living wage? No. Meanwhile the luckier, more industrious, or combination thereof, are making over 10x the amount of the lowest paid workers. Min wage needs to be raised, a lot. Look at Australia.
  - netcan 13y ago
    Did you look at these numbers? Where do you think minimum wage applies here?
    - readme 13y ago
      Yes, I actually looked quite thoroughly. It applies in that the minimum wage is too low, so the bottom end of the workers have an extraordinarily unfair salary, in spite of the fact that they probably work 40+ hour weeks driving subway trains. I have made a histogram to illustrate this problem: http://pastie.org/8106373 http://pastie.org/8106373 You can see from the data that the highest paid worker makes at least 25x the amount of the lowest paid worker. This is not what I'd call fair. To be clear, it's not just the BART. We could do this with salary data from any municipality or corporation in the US. I am operating on the assumption that many of the "train operators" are full time workers, which is not indicated in the data. I'd say it's a fairly good bet, though. That is easily one of the most hazardous and unpleasant jobs, yet they are paid dirt. See, it doesn't matter how hard you work in our society. You can dig the dirtiest hole every day, sweat, and bleed, and you will be rewarded with a substandard wage. Instead, we reward the things that propel us forward, which does make sense: anyone can dig a hole. The problem is that not everyone has equal access to the means to acquire the skills which are so jealously rewarded. Yet, they do everything right anyway, work hard, and this is what they get. A 25x lower paying job than the highest paid executive. We can fix this by raising the minimum wage to something fair. Australia has theirs at around $16 USD.
mililani 13y ago
This is why this state is in such precarious financial situations. Poorly managed over-time, resulting in excessive salary payouts, which ultimately accrues into pension liabilities.
flexie 13y ago
This is just mean. Why don't you put your own name and salary up there for us to see, mariusz331? Whether your employer is the government or a private entity and whether or not you participate in a strike you don't deserve to have your financial data exposed.
- radicaldreamer 13y ago
  They're public employees, their salaries have been public information for a long time. Mean or nice doesn't have anything to do with it.
- dennis82 13y ago
  We the People pay and employ public workers. Ergo, We the People are entitled to see their salaries, and in this particular case, how badly they're "ripping off" the Public in general.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  I support public employees, public employee unions, and the right of those employees/unions to strike. I also do not believe most of these salaries and other compensation are outrageous. But I also support complete transparency in government. Ultimately, we are their employer, and we have a right to know how much we're paying them. I know this will sometimes have negative consequences for the employees, but this is a balancing of interests, and in the end, I believe we're all better served by this. We would be better served still, however, if we knew exactly how these numbers came to be, because some of them are very strange. I'm guessing we could eventually figure most of it out with sufficient research, but ideally a subject matter expert would come forward and save us some time by explaining it.
  - dantheman 13y ago
    Why would you support public sector unions? They face a very different dynamic than ones faced in the private sector. Here's a good write up: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/43266 http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/432...
WildUtah 13y ago
Wow. Lesson number one from this list is that if you want to make a boatload working for the government, be a cop. Aside from top administrators, the top ranks of the list are dominated by regular transit cops. Usually the very, very generous retirement benefits drive high police compensation. Well paid overtime helps, too.
- mililani 13y ago
  In San Francisco, SFPD can retire with 30% of their average 3 year salary after just 10 years on the job AND 55 years of age. Usually, this is around 100k for a 10 year veteran of the force. So, if one starts at SFPD at age 45, one can retire with about $33k per year at 55. There is also a COLA adjustment per year. Average life span for a male is around 76 years. The pension benefit ALONE is worth about $700k not including the COLA adjustment. People wonder why this state and municipalities are SCREWED, and they wonder why several cities have filed bankruptcy or have skirted bankruptcy. This is PART, a BIG PART, of the reason.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  And the ability to actually kill someone you don't like and not go to jail (though you could lose your job) is quite a perk as well.
gadders 13y ago
I think pension entitlements would be an even more interesting file. These seem to be the expenditures that are crippling a lot of municipalities.
bfung 13y ago
Here's a google spreadsheet quickly thrown together: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoY_yr0BJCVdHFRc0VxV2hhX1JqRk1ORnZjLXM4MkE&usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoY_yr0BJCVdHF... Pivot table is grouped by Subtitle/Job title Chart is ordered by base salary descending, but doesn't show the lower base salaries, so don't freak on those.
usaar333 13y ago
Can someone define what the headers are to actually understand what is compensation and what are benefits private sector workers don't necessary think about as comp (e.g. health insurance)? I realize that: OT = overtime MDV = medical, dental, vision But what is ER, EE, and DC?

36 points by mariusz331 13y ago

arjn 13y ago

Very interesting. How come there are a bunch of people with $0 base salary ? Are those contractors, interns ? Also, some of those low-base employees seem to have very high employer contributions to medical/dental/vision plans. How does that work ?

nknighthb 13y ago
Some are explicitly called "intern" or "PT" (part time), some very much look like probable contractors, but I don't know how contractors end up with contributions to insurance/pension/etc, and others I see no obvious reason for such numbers at all. Conceivably some of it could be attributable to oddities of recently-retired/fired/resigned employees, but I'm sure not all of it. I think this dataset is impossible to make meaningful sense of without much more information on BART's employment practices, possibly wider laws/regulations on California public employees, and more specific information about individuals.
randartie 13y ago
Perhaps they're hourly.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  I believe almost all of the employees on this list are hourly. To pick a semi-random example from the list, a "train operator" with $60,257 in "salary" and $55,453 in overtime is not a "salaried" employee like most of the people on HN are used to.

stephanerangaya 13y ago

It'd have been nice to anonymize this data. I know it's publicly available but we should respect people's privacy. I don't think having people's name adds anything interesting to this data set.

maxcan 13y ago
In general, I'd agree. However, considering the collective action the union has taken disrupting a vital service, I think they forfeit a bit of privacy in this case. They are public servants who are holding the public hostage.
- georgespencer 13y ago
  Are they all members of the unions / striking?
  - pathy 13y ago
    I don't know exactly how it works in USA, but generally if the union decides to go on strike, you don't have much choice as an individual member.
    - josh2600 13y ago
      You have the choice to vote. The union voted to strike. Not everyone voted for it, but enough did to initiate the strike. It's usually a fairly unanimous thing. Source: once upon a time, long, long ago, I was on the executive board of a union that may or may not have voted to strike.
      - spikels 13y ago
        The percentage of members of the two BART unions that voted for the strike is also public. It was not close. SEIU 98.5% ATU 99.9% http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-workers-vote-to-authorize-a-strike-4623305.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-workers-vote-to-a...
        derleth 13y ago
        > The percentage of members of the two BART unions that voted for the strike is also public. It was not close. Those numbers (upwards of 90%) look like the numbers won by dictators in rigged elections. Who monitors the union voting process?

spamizbad 13y ago

Wow, some of these public servants make as much money as a 19 year old college dropout in Silicon Valley.

readme 13y ago
Did you mean the high end, or the low end? A college dropout can make a killing in Silicon Valley, if they are also: a talented software developer. OTOH, some of the other dropouts might end up working as BART train operators, who seem to make between 12 and 15k/yr, which is likely for full time, in a city where it costs about 1/4 of that just to scrape by on a monthly basis. It is not right to employ people at a wage that they cannot possibly subsist on. These people all ended up as bart train operators for one reason or another. Maybe they were lazy. Maybe they got shafted in life. Maybe they're dumb. But does that mean they should be paid a substandard living wage? No. Meanwhile the luckier, more industrious, or combination thereof, are making over 10x the amount of the lowest paid workers. Min wage needs to be raised, a lot. Look at Australia.
- netcan 13y ago
  Did you look at these numbers? Where do you think minimum wage applies here?
  - readme 13y ago
    Yes, I actually looked quite thoroughly. It applies in that the minimum wage is too low, so the bottom end of the workers have an extraordinarily unfair salary, in spite of the fact that they probably work 40+ hour weeks driving subway trains. I have made a histogram to illustrate this problem: http://pastie.org/8106373 http://pastie.org/8106373 You can see from the data that the highest paid worker makes at least 25x the amount of the lowest paid worker. This is not what I'd call fair. To be clear, it's not just the BART. We could do this with salary data from any municipality or corporation in the US. I am operating on the assumption that many of the "train operators" are full time workers, which is not indicated in the data. I'd say it's a fairly good bet, though. That is easily one of the most hazardous and unpleasant jobs, yet they are paid dirt. See, it doesn't matter how hard you work in our society. You can dig the dirtiest hole every day, sweat, and bleed, and you will be rewarded with a substandard wage. Instead, we reward the things that propel us forward, which does make sense: anyone can dig a hole. The problem is that not everyone has equal access to the means to acquire the skills which are so jealously rewarded. Yet, they do everything right anyway, work hard, and this is what they get. A 25x lower paying job than the highest paid executive. We can fix this by raising the minimum wage to something fair. Australia has theirs at around $16 USD.

mililani 13y ago

This is why this state is in such precarious financial situations. Poorly managed over-time, resulting in excessive salary payouts, which ultimately accrues into pension liabilities.

flexie 13y ago

This is just mean. Why don't you put your own name and salary up there for us to see, mariusz331? Whether your employer is the government or a private entity and whether or not you participate in a strike you don't deserve to have your financial data exposed.

radicaldreamer 13y ago
They're public employees, their salaries have been public information for a long time. Mean or nice doesn't have anything to do with it.
dennis82 13y ago
We the People pay and employ public workers. Ergo, We the People are entitled to see their salaries, and in this particular case, how badly they're "ripping off" the Public in general.
nknighthb 13y ago
I support public employees, public employee unions, and the right of those employees/unions to strike. I also do not believe most of these salaries and other compensation are outrageous. But I also support complete transparency in government. Ultimately, we are their employer, and we have a right to know how much we're paying them. I know this will sometimes have negative consequences for the employees, but this is a balancing of interests, and in the end, I believe we're all better served by this. We would be better served still, however, if we knew exactly how these numbers came to be, because some of them are very strange. I'm guessing we could eventually figure most of it out with sufficient research, but ideally a subject matter expert would come forward and save us some time by explaining it.
- dantheman 13y ago
  Why would you support public sector unions? They face a very different dynamic than ones faced in the private sector. Here's a good write up: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/43266 http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/432...

WildUtah 13y ago

Wow. Lesson number one from this list is that if you want to make a boatload working for the government, be a cop. Aside from top administrators, the top ranks of the list are dominated by regular transit cops. Usually the very, very generous retirement benefits drive high police compensation. Well paid overtime helps, too.

mililani 13y ago
In San Francisco, SFPD can retire with 30% of their average 3 year salary after just 10 years on the job AND 55 years of age. Usually, this is around 100k for a 10 year veteran of the force. So, if one starts at SFPD at age 45, one can retire with about $33k per year at 55. There is also a COLA adjustment per year. Average life span for a male is around 76 years. The pension benefit ALONE is worth about $700k not including the COLA adjustment. People wonder why this state and municipalities are SCREWED, and they wonder why several cities have filed bankruptcy or have skirted bankruptcy. This is PART, a BIG PART, of the reason.
flyinRyan 13y ago
And the ability to actually kill someone you don't like and not go to jail (though you could lose your job) is quite a perk as well.

gadders 13y ago

I think pension entitlements would be an even more interesting file. These seem to be the expenditures that are crippling a lot of municipalities.

bfung 13y ago

Here's a google spreadsheet quickly thrown together: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoY_yr0BJCVdHFRc0VxV2hhX1JqRk1ORnZjLXM4MkE&usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoY_yr0BJCVdHF... Pivot table is grouped by Subtitle/Job title Chart is ordered by base salary descending, but doesn't show the lower base salaries, so don't freak on those.

usaar333 13y ago

Can someone define what the headers are to actually understand what is compensation and what are benefits private sector workers don't necessary think about as comp (e.g. health insurance)? I realize that: OT = overtime MDV = medical, dental, vision But what is ER, EE, and DC?