A Madison bus driver who worked overtime was the highest paid city government employee of 2009, raising questions as to how safe and fiscally responsible the practice of allowing unlimited overtime is.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, bus driver John Nelson earned $159,258 in 2009, with overtime and other pay accounting for $109,892 of that amount. Metro Transit General Manager Chuck Kamp said there were six other drivers who earned over $100,000 for the year.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said the figures are cause for concern ""on a couple of different levels.""
""First and foremost is safety,"" Verveer said. ""On a practical level, it seems crazy that you have somebody driving a large bus that many hours in a week. The secondary concern is a fiscal one.""
Kamp said the current rules of scheduling require a break of at least 10 hours between shifts, but employees can waive that provision at their discretion.
However, Kamp said Metro riders have no reason to worry about how many hours their drivers may be working.
""Collectively, they had about 170 years of safe driving during their careers,"" Kamp said of Nelson and the other $100,000-plus earners. ""That's pretty compelling data. If for some reason the data were to change, we would take another look at it.""
The amount of spending in overtime in 2009 was greater than the personal wage savings could make up for, and it is the budget, not safety issues, that city officials find most concerning.
""For us it is not the issue of these particular drivers so much, the issue is really overall overtime,"" Rachel Strauch-Nelson, spokesperson for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said. ""We do need to take a look at that and we are in the process of doing that to make sure Metro does not exceed its overtime budget in the future.""
Kamp said labor contract negotiations will provide an opportunity to possibly revise the system, but said overtime and personal wage savings balanced out in the last few years; 2009 may have been an exception.
