City Employees Collecting Two Salaries For One Job
NY 1 News, MAY 23RD, 2004

Some city employees are being paid six figures not to show up to work.

Some city employees who also work for their unions receive two salaries under what is known as union release time. Such double-dipping workers do not perform any duties for the city, but still get paid full-time wages in addition to their union paychecks.

The mayor's office says union release time costs the city $23 million a year in wages and benefits, including $8 million at the Education Department, $4.5 million at the Police Department and $2 million at the Fire Department.

The unions say the practice lets them better serve their members, while also meeting their obligations to the city.
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PHANTOMS GET $23M Your taxes pay for no-show union workers:[SPORTS FINAL Edition]
DOUGLAS FEIDEN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER. New York Daily News. New York, N.Y.: May 23, 2004. pg. 6
Full Text (1353 words)
Copyright Daily News, L.P. May 23, 2004

The Bloomberg administration is shelling out millions of taxpayer dollars a year to hundreds of essential municipal workers who've been awarded no-show jobs.

The phantom posts result from budget-busting labor deals forged over half a century that commit City Hall to paying legions of employees for work they do for their unions.

Known as "union release time," the sweetener frees workers to perform labor activities on the taxpayer dime - and lets them double- dip by collecting union wages at the same time. That propels scores of them into six-figure incomes.

More than 400 municipal workers have been officially "released" by the city with pay to work for at least 60 different unions full time or part time, a Daily News investigation shows.

The price tag for nonperforming employees: More than $23 million a year in wages and benefits, according to payroll data supplied to The News.

Cops and firefighters, doctors and nurses, teachers and sanitation workers are among those pocketing full pay and benefits - while performing little or no city work.

Also cashing in are accountants and actuaries, bookkeepers and betting clerks, welfare managers and sewage-treatment specialists, many of whom haven't toiled for their agencies in years.

"It's a horrible symbol of the failure of government," said Ray Horton, a budget watchdog and professor of management at Columbia Business School. "It's patronage, and it's the feather bed on which union leaders rest."

From the Parks Department to Off-Track Betting, from the Housing Authority to the Office of the Actuary, from the departments of Correction and Transportation to the Health and Hospitals Corp., at least 35 city agencies maintain so-called ghost payrolls.

Coming in No. 1 on the gravy train are teachers and other employees of the Department of Education. Not far behind are New York's Finest, Bravest and Strongest: The DOE forks over $8 million a year in pay and benefits to the equivalent of about 200 full-time teachers, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. That includes time that some 1,100 United Federation of Teachers chapter leaders spend outside the classroom tending to union affairs.

"This was time we got in the collective bargaining process in lieu of salary or benefit increases," said teachers union President Randi Weingarten.

She said she believes the $8 million figure is high. But analysts say runaway release practices are responsible for the loss of a staggering 150,000 teaching periods a day.

The NYPD coughs up $4.3 million to 45 nonworking cops and 13 civilians. That includes the 26 ranking officials of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and 19 leaders of the unions that represent captains, lieutenants, detectives and sergeants, Police Department data show.

The FDNY doles out $2.2 million to 29 firefighters, officers and paramedics who serve as union executives. That includes 10 of the top brass at the Uniformed Firefighters Association and nine leaders of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, according to FDNY records.

The Department of Sanitation hands over $2 million to 28 "sanitmen" - there are no women on release - including 18 officials of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association and five bosses at the Sanitation Officers Association.

Unions say it promotes sound labor relations and lets them better serve members, while also meeting their obligations to the city to negotiate in good faith.

"It's a tremendous bargain to the taxpayer," said Thomas Scotto, president of the Detectives Endowment Association. "Every released detective works a minimum of 10 to 15 hours a day and doesn't collect a dime in overtime."

Scotto pulls down $69,300 from the NYPD, plus $22,869 in benefits - though he's been on release from detective duty since 1983. He gets another $53,034 from the Detectives Endowment Association, records show, for a package worth $145,203.

Rare among unions, the DEA reimburses the city for some release positions with concessions at the bargaining table. Dissidents gripe the cash comes out of their pockets.

The no-show workforce first took shape in the 1950s as a result of several collective bargaining contracts hammered out between then- Mayor Robert Wagner and municipal unions.

It was formalized in an executive order signed in 1973 by then- Mayor John Lindsay.

"It's a costly and longstanding perk for the unions that doesn't do a thing for the taxpayers," said Diana Fortuna, president of the Citizens Budget Commission.

Bloomberg inherited the labor pacts, along with a mushrooming no- show army, when he won election in 2001.

"Release timers" cherish their place atop the union pecking order. Any effort to challenge their status could be political poison given labor's electoral might.

But city labor negotiators are doing just that.

"We believe that the time has come to eliminate or reduce release time," said Jim Hanley, commissioner of the Office of Labor Relations.

"We put that demand on the table with all our unions, and we'll keep trying, but so far, the unions are not prepared to agree with us."

Experts doubt they ever will: "The practice has existed for so long, it's not possible to end it," said ex-Mayor Ed Koch.

Here are some other lucky members of the Release-Time Brigade: Dr. Barry Liebowitz, president of the Doctors Council. Though he's been running his union full time since 1980, he gets $163,566 a year from the Health & Hospitals Corp., on top of a $30,000 salary from the council, which represents doctors at municipal hospitals.

Liebowitz says the city benefits, as do patients. Thanks to money- saving productivity contracts he negotiated with HHC, hospitals are providing more cost-effective health care, he says.

Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, which is also called Teamsters Local 831.

On release for some two decades, he's one of 18 nonworking sanitation workers whose city contract earns them $49,000 apiece for time spent on union business. The big bucks come from Nespoli's Teamsters post, which pays $186,500.

Sandra March, a teachers union special representative, and Melvyn Aaronson, the union's treasurer.

They are pension wizards who represent the UFT on the teachers' retirement board. They are also teachers who have not worked in a classroom since 1984 and 1980, respectively.

But even as nonworking teachers, they get top pay - $81,232 apiece - due to their seniority. Salt in another annual salary on the UFT payroll, $59,215 for March and $51,810 for Aaronson.

"These are two wonderful people - Sandra is like a mother to me, Mel is like everybody's grandfather - who have given their lives to working for our retirees," Weingarten said.

The UFT chief herself is one of 32 teachers on full-time, unpaid release, as specified in the union's contract. But the city pays their benefits and sets aside millions over time for their pensions.

Pat Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

Known for hardball tactics like demanding the resignation of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the two-term PBA boss has preserved the union's most treasured perk: It boasts more released positions - 26 - than all of uniformed labor.

Lynch makes $54,048 from the NYPD, and his 23,000-member union then matches his salary with a $54,978 stipend. Lynch didn't return calls.

Other police and fire unions don't fare so bad either: Anthony Garvey, head of the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, collects $79,547 from the city and at least $25,000 from the LBA.

John Driscoll, president of the Captains Endowment Association, gets $103,577 from the NYPD and $53,676 from the CEA.

Edward Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, makes $69,300 as a nonactive sergeant and $54,000 from the association.

"The citizens don't lose," he said. "We're always up and about on the streets, and when we see a crime, we stop it."

Stephen Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, collects $54,048 from the FDNY and $49,023 from the UFA.

Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, makes $79,547 as a nonworking fire captain and more than $35,000 from the UFOA.

While the city wants to rein in or eliminate the no-shows, it's unable to do so by fiat.

"You can't unilaterally cut wages or overtime, and you can't unilaterally cut release time either - they are all mandatory subjects of bargaining," said Hanley, the city's top labor negotiator.

and yet, the Mayor says that there is no money for nurses in summer school 2004:

SUMMER-SCHOOL NURSES $LASHED
Carl Campanile, NY POST, May 25, 2004

May 25, 2004 -- The Bloomberg administration has slashed the number of nurses working the summer school program by 50 percent, provoking howls of outrage from unions, parents and politicians.
Last year, 600 nurses were assigned to schools during the summer. But city health officials said there will be just over 300 nurses this summer.

Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields called the cuts "unconscionable."

Queens parent Carmen Santana, whose son has asthma, threatened, "If something happens to my son, I will sue the city."

Nurses-union President Gloria Acevedo pointed out, "We're the first responders."