Friday, December 31, 2010

Life in "Progress" City - NY edition

So you can move to the south where you get a pay increase just from the lower taxes and lower cost of living or you can stay in NY where you get lots of snow and pay people lots of money not to remove it................

A newborn baby died after waiting nine hours for care, a Brooklyn woman had to wait 30 hours before getting an ambulance, and one person even had to spend an overnight with a deceased relative, according to the New York Daily News. And how do well-paid public employees respond to the complaints? By being annoyed.

A spokesman for the union representing employees of the New York City's Department of Sanitation said that snow clean-up workers are "getting annoyed over the fact that people are thinking there is a job action." But taxpayers are likely to be more annoyed when they find out how well the workers do financially, even in retirement.

According to the Manhattan Institute's "See Through New York" database of 2009 pensions, nearly 180 retired employees make over $66,000 year -- in other words, over and above the maximum salary of currently working employees. In fact, 20 retirees make upwards of $90,000 in retirement, up to $132,360.

Couple this with how notoriously difficult it is to fire a public employee, and you'll see why a public employee crashing a snow plow into a car doesn't rattle city officials.

Just to be clear, the top salary of $66,672 is only the tip of the iceberg for active sanitation worker compensation because it excludes other things like overtime and extra pay for certain assignments. For example, one worker in 2009 had a salary of $55,639 but actually earned $79,937 for the year.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/new-york-city-streets-are-unplowed-least-sanitation-workers-retir#ixzz19hI842kY

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