re: Los Angeles fire captain tops city’s highest-paid list with $712,000 in 2022

And I’m sure it’s still difficult to get a job there. My simple question is what special skill is required to be a fire chief in Los Angeles that he is so well compensated.

Pensions in CA are calculated based on your average pay during your final two years or something like that. So all of the government workers conspire to let workers near their retirement date juice the OT system so inflate their pensions.

It's crazy. You have janitors and shite making $300k during their calculation window and the state has to pay them six figures to sit on their arse for the next 30 years.

For what everything costs there, that’s probably like $150,000 here.

If he went out on wildfires they get paid door to door while on assignment in Cali so they rack up OT and hazard pay insanely fast.

A lot of dudes just work seasonal, make 80-100k during fire season then take off all winter and spring to ski, hunt, fish. Pretty good gig.

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$512k in overtime.

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Exorbitant OT is pretty common in fire departments, but that is pretty extreme.

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Not sure about California but in Louisiana, unless things have changed, overtime isn’t figured in to your retirement

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Same in Alabama. The three year average is based on base salary, not OT. Pension contributions are also capped at 20% of annual base pay so they can’t pad their pension near retirement. I’d be shocked if California didn’t have similar provisions.

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My bet is once on OT the pay scale is something like the first 10 hours is time and a half, then double time, then triple time, etc.

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That's exactly what it is. I don't recall the breakdown, or if there is a triple time, but after 8 hours in a day it's time and a half. Then after something like 12 hours its double time. Not sure how this works with firemen being on 12 or 24 hour shifts multiple days in a row, but the double time is definitely a factor.

Something else I haven't seen mentioned, is the holiday pay aspect. Certain holidays may already come with OT rules, where they are getting time and a half or double time for working those days.

Big cities need to start monitoring overtime on city employees especially the ones that base pay is over 100k. I think it is quite common that these guys know they can milk the system for double or triple their pay. They know they will get their budgets because big cities will just raise taxes on the middle class to pay these Crooks. Cops making double their salary, with OT, sitting in their squad car with the lights on for traffic purposes. Meanwhile my taxes go up 1,500 every year. This has to stop put them on salary like most of the private sector does.

Was not aware. That sounds awful.

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My wife has worked in hospital settings where their Union position paid them "$12/hr" just to be on call. They rarely went in. She made like an extra $50K a year between that and true OT in DC, with 1/5 of that from true call outs.

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Yup, certain departments are 24/7 365 in large hospital systems. Technically, my wife is on call 28 days of the month, minus vacation or medical. At times it can be taxing, but I know at least twice a month she’s as happy as a pig in shite.