Click here to subscribe today or Login.
By MICHAEL McNARNEY mmcnarney@leader.net
Sunday, March 16, 2003 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE – Joey Davis Jr. is everywhere.
Literally.
Checking on collapsed catch basins.
Plowing snow off the streets.
Sandblasting graffiti off buildings.
Davis, 50, of Mill Street, is paid handsomely for his troubles. In fact,
with all of the overtime and other perks, Davis’ gross pay of $85,627 made him
the highest paid employee in the city in 2002. His base pay is $42,966.
A public works superintendent, Davis easily outearned his bosses: Public
Works Director Al Clocker ($58,039), City Administrator Jim Hayward Jr.
($61,432) – even Mayor Tom McGroarty ($72,406).
City taxpayers paid about $1 million in overtime in 2002 to everyone from
Davis, who made $40,926 in overtime, to Owen Moran, a clerk in the finance
office whose single hour of overtime netted him $16, bringing his total pay to
$20,198 in 2002.
About two-thirds of the city’s 300-plus employees received overtime pay in
2002. In the most extreme cases, overtime helped some employees earn more than
double their regular salaries.
“You can’t fault them,” City Councilwoman Kathy Kane said of city workers
who are paid overtime. “If you wanted overtime and you had a family, you’d do
the same thing.”
The city’s payroll without overtime and holiday pay was about $11.2 million
in 2002.
Of the top 25 overtime earners in 2002, all are men. Eighteen work for the
Public Works or related departments; five are police officers; and one each is
in code enforcement and purchasing.
Public Works employees earned the lion’s share of the overtime, $411,265.
“We have rain in the summer and snow in the winter,” McGroarty said.
“It’s just the business we’re in.”
Public Works employees, led by McGroarty, drove up state Route 115 to Bear
Creek Village on May 28, 2002, to aid the flooded borough, which initially
asked for sandbags.
The sandbags, still loaded in city trucks, sat for days at the PennDOT
maintenance shed in Bear Creek Township before being returned to Wilkes-Barre
unused.
“I think you should help your neighbors,” McGroarty said. “We took a ton
of guys up there on overtime. It was the right thing to do.”
The mayor also noted how he accompanied city firefighters to a fire at
Medico Industries in Plains Township earlier this year – even though Medico
and McGroarty were feuding about an unpaid equipment bill.
Said the mayor: “That just shows what a nice guy I am.”
Public Works employees do more than plow snow and lend a helping hand to
municipalities in trouble. They also do the dirty work of the mayor’s many
special curbside pickups, a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.
In 2002, at least a few Public Works employees were devoted to special
pickups on 141 of 253 non-holiday weekdays. Besides clutter cleanup, there’s
cardboard pickup, battery and tire pickup, metal and appliance pickup, and
phone book pickup.
Add recycling and the number of days devoted to pickups climbs to 193 of
253 days. Many municipalities, including New York City, have eliminated
curbside recycling because of costs, but McGroarty maintains it’s a
moneymaker.
Christine Katsock, vice president of the Wilkes-Barre Area Taxpayers
Association and a Republican candidate for mayor, said she isn’t so sure
recycling is worth it.
“I would really like to see the figures of what we get in recycling from
the state,” Katsock said, and compare it with how much it costs to pay people
to pick the material up.
The Public Works Department is unique among city departments in that
McGroarty often directs the men (there are no women) personally. He also likes
to pitch in behind the wheel and remind people he once sold heavy equipment.
And as often as not it’s McGroarty, not Public Works boss Clocker, who
calls the men in early or asks them over the radio to stay late.
McGroarty calls it hands-on management. Kane calls it micromanaging.
“If he would let Al Clocker do Al Clocker’s job, it would be organized,”
Kane said. “If he pays him the money to be the man in charge, then let him be
the man in charge.”
Kane said the Public Works Department needs more people, and that the men
there are being worked to death.
McGroarty disagrees.
“People make stupid statements that you could have less overtime if you
have more people,” McGroarty said. “But the fact is, we had more overtime
when we had more people.”
Michael McNarney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7305.