Nearly a quarter of the L.I.R.R. employees make six figures, reports the NY Times, including one hale fellow who took in $239,000 last year, thanks to lots and lots of overtime.
The MTA is under tremendous financial duress, as we all know, so news of the seemingly out of whack salaries come at a tricky time. And to be sure, most railroad employees’ wages are much more in line with what one might expect.
But overtime remains a lucrative prospect for the career railroaders. The $239,000 conductor, named Thomas J. Redmond, retired in April. He had a base pay of just under $68,000, got the same amount in overtime, and racked up almost $100,000 in unused sick days and vacation time.
Redmond outearned the railroad’s executive v.p. last year. Helena E. Williams, the president of the L.I.R.R., made $286,872.
Reports the Times:
Two car repairmen at the L.I.R.R. and 12 police officers assigned to the authority’s bridges and tunnels, some of whom earned more than double their base salaries, were among the 50 employees at the authority who collected $200,000 or more, the data show.
The second-highest paid employee at the agency’s bridge and tunnel division, after its president, was Walter Stock, a lieutenant who earned $226,383, more than twice his base pay of $90,000, according to the data.
At No. 17 was Dominick J. Masiello, an L.I.R.R. locomotive engineer, who earned about $75,000 in base salary and overtime payments of $52,000.
He also received $94,600 in “penalty payments,” which railroad officials said stemmed from a contractual rule that requires engineers who work in a storage yard to be paid extra if they are assigned to move a locomotive to a nearby maintenance facility or if they are asked to operate a train outside of the yard.
Similar to the cops and firefighters, railroad workers try to rack up major overtime and unused days in their final year, as I believe their pension payments are set based on their last few years’ earnings.