Oakland engineer and police officer again earn a combined $1 million, as superhuman OT continues
Today, Transparent California — California’s largest public pay database — released previously unseen 2017 pay data for the City of Oakland.
Fourteen Oakland city employees received over $400,000 apiece in pay and benefits last year — more than double the 6 employees who received that much in the preceding year.
Topping the list once again was police officer Malcolm Miller, whose $113,158 regular salary was more than quadrupled to $494,384 after specialty pays, overtime pay and benefits are accounted for.
Thanks to continually receiving overtime pay that more than doubled his base salary, Miller has been the city’s top earner every year since 2013, with the exception of 2015 when he was the city’s 2nd highest compensated employee.
Such continuously extreme amounts of overtime pay for a police officer — and the number of hours worked it suggests — is troubling, according to Transparent California Executive Director Robert Fellner.
“The data indicate this one police officer has been working roughly two times the regular hours for years on end. This is a recipe for disaster given the life-or-death situations police officers routinely encounter.”
Civil engineer Kenny Lau was Oakland’s 2nd highest compensated worker last year, with $480,562 in pay and benefits — most of which came from an agency-high $283,514 overtime payout.
107-hour average workweek
Like Miller, Lau has consistently received overtime pay in excess of his regular salary since at least 2013.
In 2016, Lau’s time cards showed that he worked all 366 days of the leap year, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.
Lau’s $283,000 overtime pay in 2017 suggests a similarly intense workload, equating to an average 107 hours worked for all 52 weeks of the year.
After Miller and Lau, the next 3 highest compensated Oakland city workers were:
- Police lieutenant Trevelyon Jones, who received $462,370 in pay and benefits.
- Police lieutenant Sean Fleming, who received $435,695 in pay and benefits.
- Fire engineer Preetpal Dhaliwal, who received $433,054 in pay and benefits.
Average wages up over 20% since 2013
The average full-year city worker collected $114,620 in wages last year, a 21 percent increase from 2013. When benefits are included, that value rises to $167,363 — which represents a 26.5 percent increase from 2013.
Total city-wide spending on employee compensation was up 33 percent over that same time period, hitting an all-time high of $578 million last year.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a less than 5 percent increase in median earnings for Oakland private-workers from 2013 ($48,610) to 2016 ($50,893) — the most recent year for which data was available.
The disparity in rate of growth between wages in the private sector and Oakland city hall is a troubling trend, according to Fellner.
“The ultimate ability to fund government pay packages rests with the taxpayers. If pay at Oakland city hall continues to outpace the growth of wages in the private sector, there may reach a point when taxpayers are unable to meet such a burden.”
To explore the entire 2017 Oakland payroll report in a searchable and downloadable format, please click here.
Transparent California will be continually updating the site with new, 2017 data from the remaining cities and counties in the coming weeks. Be sure to follow our blog and Twitter accounts, or sign up for our mailing list, in order to receive the latest updates.
For more information, please contact Robert Fellner at 559-462-0122 or Robert@TransparentCalifornia.com.
Transparent California is California’s largest and most comprehensive database of public sector compensation and is a project of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan, free-market think tank. The website is used by millions of Californians each year, including elected officials and lawmakers, government employees and their unions, government agencies themselves, university researchers, the media, and concerned citizens alike. Learn more at TransparentCalifornia.com.
