Metro isn’t the only public agency with an excessive overtime problem. Prince George’s County Public Schools has one, too. According to a database obtained by The Washington Examiner under the Maryland Public Information Act, overtime pushed the total compensation of many school support staff employees well beyond those received by principals and classroom teachers who are most responsible for educating the county’s schoolchildren. For example, the $66,486 paid to an elementary teacher was far eclipsed by the hefty $82,182 a bus driver pulled in, which included $37,264 in overtime that nearly doubled her annual base salary of $44,918. An auditorium technician was paid a base salary of $61,971 and paycheck-fattening overtime of $26,763 for a total of $88,734 — more than a reading resource teacher gets. Likewise, the take-home pay of a journeyman plumber who already makes $77,610 — more than the teacher — jumped to $112,849 when his $35,239 in overtime earnings were included. That’s more than a number of school principals and assistant principals were paid.
Furthermore, as PGCPS general counsel Roger Thomas points out, these figures do not include “benefits including life, medical related and disability insurances and employee pension benefits,” which push total compensation for these bus drivers, plumbers and technicians well into six figures. Skilled support staff deserve decent wages for their work, but spending $8.2 million just on employee overtime is clearly excessive. A useful work force management tool when demand for labor temporarily exceeds the supply, overtime can also be a warning sign of mismanagement when it becomes chronic, as appears to be the case here. So such excessive amounts of overtime pay would still be a concern if the school system could afford it, which it obviously cannot. In February, the Prince George’s school board voted to increase class sizes in an effort to trim its own $155 million budget gap.
To put that $8.2 million figure in perspective: County Executive Rushern Baker is currently considering delaying the hiring of 165 police officers, 60 firefighters and 32 corrections officers because of a $5.4 million budget shortfall caused by a steep recession-related drop in revenue. A $1.2 million across-the-board cost-of-living increase for county employees negotiated by former County Executive Jack Johnson is also in jeopardy. Add the entire budget shortfall and the countywide cost-of-living increase together, and the total still comes out to less than what PGCPS paid out in overtime last year.
