Straight pay works for Swampscott school employees

SWAMPSCOTT – When it comes to earning a living in Swampscott, working for the school department or police department pays off. When it comes to straight salary, which does not include overtime or detail work, 66 percent of town employees earning more than $100,000 work for the school department.Click Here for the complete list – SwampscottWhen it comes to salary alone, Superintendent Matthew Malone, who earned $155,141, was the highest paid in town. He was followed by Police Chief Ronald Madigan, who earned $125,957. Town Administrator Andrew Maylor grabbed the third spot with $121,991 and he was followed closely by High School Principal Lawrence Murphy, who made $117,803.Like the last several years, the lion’s share of the town budget for salaries went to school department employees. There were 106 town employees who earned more than $70,000 in salary alone in 2008 and 88 of those were in the school department. School Business Manager Ed Cronin attributed the increase in the number of school employees making more than $70,000 to longevity and step payments. The highest paid employees in the district are Malone and Murphy, followed by Special Education Director Maureen Bingham, who made $113,500. In all there were six school department employees pulling down more than $100,000 a year including teacher Paul Athanas, who made $103,405.But when overtime and detail work is added to the mix, six of the 10 top wage earners in town were in the police department. There were 17 members of the police department who earned more than $100,000 last year in salary, overtime and details.When details and overtime are included, Officer Jonathan Locke grabbed the second spot on the list of highest paid town employees by supplementing his base salary of $79,929 with an additional $34,372 in overtime and $29,936 in detail work. The third highest paid town employee was Officer William Waters, who earned $128,936 including details and overtime.The police department spent more than $514,700 in overtime in 2007 and in 2008 the department spent more than $500,000 on overtime.Madigan said vacation time, sick time and contractual days off accounted for most of the overtime.”As an administrator I would prefer adequate staffing levels to using overtime,” he said. “But there are always cases where we need to use overtime to address situations and cover shifts when officers are out.”Madigan added some of the overtime in the department is paid for with state and federal grants and private contractors foot the bill for details.Overtime was also a factor in the fire department and Chief Michael Champion said inadequate staffing is a huge factor when it comes to overtime.”Overtime covers sick days, vacation days, holidays, injuries and contracted benefits,” he said. “We have four unfunded and unfilled positions. We’re down to minimum manning so we have to replace with overtime.”Town Administrator Andrew Maylor said balancing adequate staffing levels and overtime is difficult.”We’re no different than any other municipality,” he said. “It’s a juggling act. We’re trying to maintain adequate staffing and negotiating staffing changes when appropriate to keep overtime down. But a lot of the circumstances related to overtime are somewhat out of our control especially when it’s injury related.”