SPECIAL: California can't pay teachers but can pay $1.7 bn in union OT

Unionized California State employees are earning eye-popping paychecks as they engorge themselves with overtime pay in spite of the ongoing Great Recession that is hammering Main Street. The state's misguided attempts at fiscal reform and the tremendous influence of union lobbyists has created an untenable financial situation for the state and its people. 

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Few people will begrudge state employees their hard-earned overtime, particularly when they know some positions simply have to be covered. But when employees like Jean Keller, a nurse at a men's prison on the California coast, earned $269,810 last year, and the state is without money to pay teachers, tempers are bound to flare.

Jean Keller has been singled out for receiving more overtime in 2010 than any other state employee in California. According to records, state employees collected a whopping $1.7 billion of overtime pay last year.

Just think of what $1.7 billion could buy. 

With just over 35 million people in the state, that $1.7 billion divided equally equates to almost $50 per year, per every man woman and child. And when you consider that a substantial portion of that population does not pay income taxes, it becomes obvious that the taxpayer contribution can be anywhere between $50-$100 per person, per year. That's a lot of money in overtime pay for unionized state employees.

State statistics show that the overtime pay to unionized employees would be enough to fund the salaries of approximately 25,000 teachers. If the state were to hire that number of teachers, it could reduce class sizes, improve education, and be of a general benefit to society. Instead, those monies are going into union coffers and the hands of state employees who are already the highest paid in the nation.

The unions cannot be blamed for their skill at the bargaining table. Decades of strong union representation have led to part of the problem. The other part, is that government officials have change the rules for state employees. Rules they say, actually save the state money.

State representatives claim that by implementing hiring freezes, mandatory furloughs, and putting employees on overtime shifts -- they are saving on the cost of hiring new staff. Those costs can equate to almost a third of an employee's annual salary, once benefits are added in.

In California, employees are paid time-and-a-half for overtime. This means that every time an employee works overtime in place of another person working a regular shift, the state must now shell out an additional 50 percent in wages. While it is true the state is saving on the cost of hiring new staff and paying their benefits, they aren't really making significant fiscal headway.

Worse, when employees work overtime they are more likely to be tired, to make mistakes or have accidents.

Exacerbating the overtime problems is the practice of allowing employees to cash in unused vacation time. Several employees have been able to accumulate tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unused vacation pay. One state-employed doctor accrued an astounding half-million dollars that was paid immediately when he retired.

State unions deny that they are milking the system. Rather, they placed the blame squarely on the hands of the bureaucrats. State officials on the other hand, claim that the unions are very powerful and will not renegotiate the status quo, preferring to leave things as they are.

While state officials and unions appear to have reached an impasse, tens of thousands of other public employees remain without work, many drawing public assistance. The voodoo math that suggests that working personnel overtime is somehow a money-saving device must be exposed as the fraud it is.

Saving on hiring costs to pay out more in benefits and overtime, while diminishing both the worker and public safety, as well as the quality of public services--while simultaneously increasing unemployment and the number of people on public assistance, amounts to a scam of epic proportions.

It's time for such insanity to stop. California cannot afford to give state bureaucrats and union employees luxuriant benefits while the common folk suffer. To perpetuate this problem is an offense that flies in the face of both dignity and reason.

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