Metro drivers make $100,000 in pay

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543 days ago: Metro staff hop on overtime gravy train

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(Greg Whitesell/Examiner)
Thirty bus and train operators took home more than $50,000 in overtime.

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - More than 100 Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority bus and train operators took home paychecks topping $100,000 in fiscal 2006 because of lush overtime earnings that have skewed Metro’s budget and sent pension costs spiraling out of control under a uniquely generous employee retirement plan.

Overall, Metro paid its employees $70 million in overtime in 2006 and is on track to spend the same amount in this budget year, according to a recent audit report, continuing a trend of high overtime costs that have plagued Metro’s budgets for years.

Roughly $30 million of the overtime payments went to Metro’s 2,400 bus operators and 500 train operators, 125 of whom earned more than $100,000 that year. Another 284 hourly Metro workers in other departments earned more than $100,000 because of overtime. Only 180 of Metro’s salaried management employees earned more than $100,000.

In some cases, the overtime wages accounted for nearly half of an operator's annual paycheck, meaning the employee is working significantly more than the usual 40 hours each week. Thirty operators took home more than $50,000 in overtime.

The two highest-paid train operators, who earned $153,759 and $152,891 respectively, earned $74,208 and $73,659 in overtime. The highest-paid bus operators collected $127,653 and $126,457, received $53,696 and $52,490, in overtime. In other cases, overtime accounted for almost 50 percent of an employee’s paychecks in 2006.

Overtime hours are paid at 1 1/2 times the employee's usual hourly rate, making regular use of overtime expensive. Metro General Manager John Catoe, who took over in January, hopes to reduce overtime as part of his strategy to cut costs and keep Metro’s budget balanced.

Overtime work costs Metro more than other regional transit agencies because the system's retirement policy includes overtime payments when calculating pension payments, a rarity in transit agencies elsewhere. The policy means Metro is paying vastly higher pensions to employees than they would receive if their retirement payments were based on regular hourly earnings.

The increasing cost of pensions was one of the chief reasons Metro officials cited when they proposed fare increases in December. Catoe has since shelved the fare-increase idea while he looks for new ways to slice spending.

Metro Board of Directors member Ray Bricuso said the rich overtime system “needs to stop. An employee who makes $65,000 can work a lot of overtime their final years on the job and make $100,000 a year. That would increase their annual pension to about $80,000 for what is really a $65,000 job.”

Stopping this practice may not be easy.

Metro’s employee union enjoys immense clout when it negotiates contracts with Metro’s board, which is not profit-focused like the board of directors of a private company. They are political appointees and often are also elected officials, who are concerned with pleasing voters — such as Metro’s 10,000 employees.

“The make up of the board is heavily political, let’s leave it at that,” Metro Board Chairman Charles Deegan said.

Even with the lavish pension system, Metro has difficulty attracting top job candidates because of its unusual hiring practices.

Until recently, Metro required that bus operators spend up to a year as part-time employees, positions that come without the health insurance and other benefits of full-time employment. Metro also has a long-standing policy that it will hire only bus operators to fill open train-operator positions.

Some board members say they think these policies make it hard to expand the work force, which would allow Metro to cut back on overtime. These practices also saddle Metro with a large pool of inexperienced bus operators because many job candidates do not want to start off earning a part-time salary with no benefits.

Critics of the system believe that lack of experience is one reason Metrobus operators have been involved in so many accidents in the past year. None of the highly paid, experienced drivers were involved in any of the crashes.

Even as its fiscal situation grows more dire, Metro is expanding its service, creating a higher demand for bus and train operators. Metro Chief Bus Operating Officer Jack Requa said the agency has expanded its training program for bus drivers to get more new hires behind the wheel sooner.

Metro’s high overtime outlays would suggest that the system is short of personnel. Metro reports having just 70 vacancies out of 2,400 bus operator positions.

“It may be that we should hire more operators,” Catoe said. “We need to consider hiring more operators if it means cutting down on overtime.”

jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com

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