• See 2011 overtime earnings for Montgomery County employees:
• View in PDF format
• View as a spreadsheet
The revelation that hundreds of Montgomery County employees racked up five-figure overtime payments last year is just the latest example of the unions’ oversized influence in the wealthy suburb, according to officials and political observers familiar with the inner workings of local government there.
More than 280 county employees received more than $30,000 last year in overtime payments, according to records obtained by The Washington Examiner, including some public safety employees who doubled their paychecks by working the additional hours.
Employee benefits, including overtime payments, have increased regularly in recent years, even as residents have taken on a greater tax burden to cover chronic budget shortfalls. And some say the union influence is the driving force behind an inability to curtail soaring paydays amid fiscal woes.
“In Montgomery County, the unions have been in charge for a long time,” said Nancy Dacek, a longtime County Council woman. “I dealt with police and fire for 12 years. Every year, we would cut [the overtime budget], and every year they would come back with more overtime hours. It’s part of the negotiations.”
However, union leaders and other county officials say the rising overtime requests merely reflect funding shortages that have downsized departments and forced employees to work longer hours to perform necessary services.
“One of the things you don’t want to do is to potentially impact safety — to have people working far more hours than they are potentially able to,” said County Executive Ike Leggett, who added that he “would consider changes to the union contract if he found that they could save money.”
Public safety officials also defended the arrangement, saying that overtime assignments were distributed in a fair manner and not based on seniority.
In addition to overtime claims, though, employees have banked sizable disability payments, concerning watchdogs because they largely coincide with retirement eligibility dates.
Nearly one-third of Montgomery County employees awarded disability since 2005 — and almost half of such firefighters — began banking the taxpayer-funded payments at the time they qualified for normal retirement.
When money was flowing freely, Montgomery unions pushed county leaders to deliver exorbitant salaries and benefits in exchange for political backing needed to survive in a county government dominated by one-party Democrat rule, critics say. County officials running for re-election routinely donated money to unions, who in turn showered them with money and endorsements.
And salaries doubled for most county workers between 1999 and 2009, while inflation rose 37 percent.
Recent budget gaps have slowed the steady growth in employee compensation, but detractors say overtime payments — among other benefits — reflect an outdated entitlement system that persists despite empty coffers.
“Until somebody can tell the unions, ‘This isn’t the way we’re going to do it from here on in,’ we’ll see more of the same,” Dacek lamented. “No, I don’t see it changing soon.”
Staff Writer Rachel Baye contributed to this report.
