http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/local/scn-gt-salaries1feb27,0,6652672.story?coll=green-news-local-headlines
By Donna Porstner
Staff Writer
February 27, 2005
STAMFORD -- More than 250 Stamford city employees made six figures last year -- more than twice as many as in Norwalk and nearly three times as many as Greenwich and New Haven.
The number of Stamford employees making six-figure salaries has more than doubled in five years. In 1999, 99 Stamford employees were making that kind of money. Ten years ago, only seven made more than $100,000.
A look at the Top 250 wage earners in the four towns shows about 8 percent of Stamford's work force made more than $100,000 in 2004, compared with nearly 6 percent in Norwalk, nearly 4 percent in Greenwich and about 2 percent in New Haven.
The superintendent of schools is the highest paid in each town, and law enforcement and education is where municipal employees are making the big bucks.
More than one-third of Stamford's police force -- 114 officers -- earned more than $100,000 last year. Almost all bolstered their base salaries with overtime and side jobs in which they are hired by companies, utilities and private individuals for security work and to direct traffic. Those jobs are paid for by the person or company hiring the officer -- not taxpayers.
Of Stamford's 250 highest-paid employees, 45.6 percent are police officers. In New Haven, police accounted for 38 percent of the top earners; in Norwalk police accounted for 31.2 percent.
Greenwich, unlike the other towns, does not include side jobs in its gross pay. Police officers made up 13.2 percent of the town's Top 250 earners in 2004.
Greenwich officials said the town does not track how much officers earn in side jobs. Though the jobs are assigned by the Greenwich Police Department's Traffic Division, the vendors pay the officers directly, said Pauline Rameor, business operations supervisor for the department's General Services Division.
"I wouldn't even know how to collect that data," Rameor said. "The checks, by and large, go directly to the officer. Those checks do not pass through our payroll process at all."
Side work and overtime is big money in Stamford, where a few officers work those jobs to double or triple their base pay.
Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy said the large amounts of side work available to Stamford Police officers, sometimes called extra duty, makes it difficult to compare their earnings to salaried city employees who don't have the same opportunities to earn extra money.
"A very significant portion of their income is side jobs, which is noncity funds," Malloy said.
The Top 250 list, which looks at gross earnings, also includes payments police and firefighters who retired last year might have received when they cashed in unused sick and vacation time, he said.
"Almost every retiree ends up on that list," Malloy said.
When the city compares wages, Malloy said officials compare employees' base pay to similar jobs in other towns.
"I think if you look at base pay for those groups, they come out similarly," Malloy said.
City Director of Human Resources Dennis Murphy would not say which municipalities Stamford uses for wage comparisons.
The city is negotiating new contracts with the Teamster's union and paid firefighters working in the volunteer companies. The contracts with police, fire, city hall supervisors, the United Auto Workers' union, the nurse's union, District 1199, city attorneys, dental hygienists and school custodians expire June 30 and negotiations will begin soon.
The Stamford Board of Education is negotiating a new contract with the educational assistants' union. The school security guards contract is up June 30.
School administrators, who are top wage earners in the city every year, are slated to get a 3.95 percent wage increase July 1. The increase comes after a 3.85 percent wage increase last year and a 3 percent raise in 2003. The Board of Education tried to limit the increases to more than 3 percent but lost in arbitration two years ago.
At the time, Majority Leader John Boccuzzi, D-2, called the principals and assistant principals, who account for about 20 percent of Stamford's top 250, "greedy." Union President Winifred Hamilton disagreed, saying, "This is by no means a great contract."
Stamford teachers, who received a 2 percent raise this year, are slated to get 3 percent next year and 2.25 percent in the 2006-07 school year.
In recent years, Stamford's unionized employees have been getting wage increases averaging 3 percent.
Malloy would not say what kind of wage increases his administration plans to offer in upcoming negotiations.
Unlike the private sector, he said, municipal labor contracts are often settled in arbitration, where the outcome depends largely on the raises given elsewhere in the state. Malloy said that if the city fights for lower than average wage hikes, that would increase the chances of an arbitrator siding with the union.
Another mayor tried to negotiate 0 percent wage increases about 20 years ago, he said, "and the city was punished very badly."
With arbitration, Malloy said, "fairness is measured by what it is being done in the rest of the state. . . . Obviously, I'd prefer a system that takes into account the ability of citizens to support the salary structure."
Copyright © 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.