<p>I’m with emilybee. I bet if these people weren’t working 12-14 hours a day, it would have taken a LOT longer to clean up after hurrican Sandy. We heard/read in the news a lot of complaints from NY’ers who weren’t used to non-24/7 service. Working 12-14 hours a day cleaning up the mess is NOT an easy way to earn money. I’m pretty sure working in an dry, clean, temperature-controlled office is a lot more comfortable. If you want the service, don’t begrudge the people who provide it to you. Geez.</p>
<p>As a state office employee, there is NO way to “goose” my hours. No overtime for exempt employees. That’s what exempt means - no overtime pay.</p>
I’m not sure where emilybee thought I was complaining. My area was absolutely devastated by the storm and still hasn’t recovered. I was explaining how some workers increase their pensions. Considering that my husband was one of those workers (as well as one of the people who cleaned up the WTC site after 9/11), you don’t need to tell me how hard he worked. Where did you even get the idea that I begrudged anything? Nothing in my post referred to that. I simply explained what had happened and was happening. You attributed something that was absolutely not there. Geez.</p>
It depends on the school district how salary is handled for extra service. Here in NYC, there is afternoon school and Saturday to prepare for the standardized tests. It is extra. My D is doing every Saturday from 8-12 between now and the tests. She is being paid for that at a special rate.</p>
<p>^ ZM, it sounded to me that you were complaining that they are taking retirement now because their pay increased by a significant amount due to the overtime they received during Sandy. I presumed from what you wrote that you think overtime shouldn’t go towards retirement calculations. To me, they worked all those overtime hours and they deserve to have that counted.</p>
<p>If I misunderstood your point, my apologies.</p>
<p>“She is being paid for that at a special rate.”</p>
<p>Good for her! My mom taught for 25 years and never was paid extra for anything. I don’t think teachers in my district are either, but, tbh, I haven’t paid much attention to that.</p>
No. Not at all. I was NOT complaining, I was explaining. And I think I should have made myself more clear that I don’t have an answer, but I do think consideration has to be given of many things. I specifically referred to age/years of service being important considerations. Which I do think. I am the wife of a man who works this physical job (one of his coworkers was stabbed with a syringe in a drug den last week), but I still believe that we can’t support pensions and medical benefits for that many decades. Believe it or not, my husband does, as well, as do many of his co-workers. Because they have kids here who pay the taxes. It is a complicated issue and serious people can discuss it. Should discuss it. Even families of such workers shouldn’t be entrenched in the “give me mine” mindset. We have to think of the future, you know? But I in no way begrudge the overtime. That was not present in my post at all. However, I am personally amused by Mayor Bloomberg’s behavior because, to me, it is the indication that he screwed up.</p>
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There is a real hope that extra work will help the students elevate to the new standards. There is a lot of work and effort going on, as well as hope and excitement. There is a little bit of flexibility on non-school hours work and D has included a book club. You will never believe that BOYS have been the first to sign up.</p>
<p>No, they deserve to be paid for the hours they worked. Actuarially, it’s unsound, not to mention unfair, to include one year of massive overtime in the calculation of a pension. What about the guys four years from retirement, it doesn’t count for them. Or people just starting their career. They only get paid for the work they do, not paid for the work for the next 30 years.</p>
<p>From a budget planing standpoint, base pay is pretty predictable, and you can ask for contributions over a long period of time to make the system work. Have sudden spike in pay and the system becomes underfunded and you risk instability and collapse.</p>
<p>If I pay a guy to cut my lawn an extra time, he gets paid for cutting my lawn. He doesn’t get to come back for the next 30 years and say “You know that time I cut your lawn an extra time back in 2013 - you still owe me.”</p>
<p>MrMom, I disagree but you are free to have that opinion. </p>
<p>If they don’t want to include overtime - don’t offer overtime. Let them hire more workers to get the jobs that need to be done, done. Or cut services.</p>
<p>No, just don’t include a short-term fluke in the the pension calculations. What possible logical explanation can you give to justify including a short-term statistical fluke in someone’s lifetime pension benefit? </p>
<p>If someone is working a consistent amount of overtime over a long term period, say 10 years, I completely agree that should be considered “base pay”, as the worker expects it and has delivered over that time. By your logic, it would also be completely justified to also base pension on the highest 3 days you ever worked. Must be nice to be so generous with OPM.</p>
<p>zoosermom, please accept my apologies. I totally misread your post. I think people should be compensated for the hours they work (like your husband).</p>
<p>“What possible logical explanation can you give to justify including a short-term statistical fluke in someone’s lifetime pension benefit?”</p>
<p>It is not their choice to work the overtime in those circumstances. It is required. Let them hire more workers if they don’t want this type of overtime to count, though I am pretty sure it is economically much more inexpensive to have less workers + overtime, then more workers and no overtime.</p>
<p>It can be more economical to use overtime up to a certain point, though if it occurs on a regular basis, it’s not. Sometimes union contracts prohibit/discourage hiring more workers over using overtime as the existing workers like/expect overtime vs. having more people around at straight time. If you have a 100 guys doing 60 hours/week repeatedly, you should probably hire another 50 guys, as anyone doing 60 hours repeatedly isn’t going to be doing a very good job for a lot of those hours.</p>
<p>That still doesn’t justify using a high three standard including overtime for pensions. It may be how it is now, but it doesn’t make it financially sound.</p>
<p>“If you have a 100 guys doing 60 hours/week repeatedly, you should probably hire another 50 guys, as anyone doing 60 hours repeatedly isn’t going to be doing a very good job for a lot of those hours.”</p>
<p>I don’t think that makes economic sense when you have to factor in all the benefits those additional workers would get. That is why they’d rather give overtime. It’s cheaper.</p>
<p>If you use the auto industry as a benchmark, benefits rarely exceed 40% of salary. Since benefits are pretty much a fixed cost item, overtime makes sense only if it does not exceed 40% of base hours. But that’s assuming workers are equally productive for the overtime as they are the first 40 hours, and they generally aren’t. Factor in double time, and the number of overtime hours should be even less on an economic basis.</p>
<p>Basic rule of thumb is, if your workers are routinely putting in more than 12 hours of overtime per week, you need to hire more people. Overtime is supposed to be for surge capacity, not routine work.</p>
<p>Costblog…not in my state. Stipends paid for clubs are NOT considered pensionable salary. These stipends are not added int the teacher’s salary for pension purposes…ever in this state. The only things that can be added are actual teaching responsibilities. Nothing else.</p>
<p>What state adds on stipends for coaching, or clubs? And how much do these teachers get paid for them?</p>