You can’t knock the hustle! Three housekeepers and a service aide at Jacobi Medical Center each banked more than $80,000 in overtime last year boosting their wages to an average $120,000. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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That’s more than three times their $33,000 base salary.
The four men are well-known as the Bronx hospital’s overtime kings. One cleaning crew boss even questioned how it’s physically possible to tally that big a tab.
“I don’t even have to say it, do the math: 100-something hours per week, month after month, who can work like that?” he asked. “You’re not sleeping.”
Mayor Bloomberg has cut the number of workers at the city’s 11 hospitals and four nursing homes by 2,600 over two years as part of a cost-saving overhaul.
In turn, the Health and Hospitals Corp. overtime bill has steadily spiked, reaching $125 million last fiscal year. That’s up $32 million – 34% – from 2007, according to the Mayor’s Management Report.
“Overtime has been a concern for us,” said Charles Brecher, executive vice president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-financed watchdog group.
Still, city officials have long argued that it’s more economical to pay fewer employees overtime than to cover the pensions and health benefits of more workers.
These are last year’s top-paid hospital housekeepers:
* Dwayne Hiers was No. 1, earning $125,014, including $91,291 in overtime.
* Service aide Benjamin Greene banked $122,205, including $88,253 in overtime.
Greene was on duty yesterday, but not available.
“He’s on break right now, but he’s off hospital grounds. He doesn’t know when he’ll be back,” a co-worker said after calling him on a cell phone.
* Noel Morales-Rivera was paid $121,515, including $87,804 in overtime.
* William Gould earned $114,695, including $80,933 in overtime.
Hiers, Morales-Rivera and Gould could not be reached.
Experts say it’s hard to know if fewer workers and extra overtime are cost-effective without a thorough review.
“I think it tends to be more the case when you have very expensive pension benefits, as is the case with police and fire,” Brecher said.
The cleaning crew boss, who does not oversee the big earners, said there is very little oversight of hours.
“There’s no punch clock. They’re not checking in with their supervisors,” he said. “Milking it ain’t the word talking about the four guys. I’m on overtime now but I actually have to work and be seen. They disappear for hours and no one knows.”
HHC blamed the OT on belt- tightening.
Jacobi has cut 35 full-time housekeepers, resulting in a savings of $1.7 million in personnel costs, hospital spokeswoman Ana Marengo said.
“The unit is called upon to take care of special projects that in the past may have required outside services, such as moving, dismantling and preparing spaces for new uses. They are doing more with less,” Marengo said.
