Aman Ali of the Journal News is reporting:
For the second consecutive year, 90 percent of the district’s top overtime earners were maintenance workers, custodians or tradesmen such as carpenters – each receiving at least $10,000 in 2008. Overall, the district paid $692,195 in overtime in 2008, compared to $673,000 in 2007.
Ali even took the trouble to go back and look at what baloney he was fed the year before the by the District
When the newspaper reported on New Rochelle’s 2007 school salaries, John B. Quinn, assistant superintendent for business and administration, said the district hoped to cut back on overtime with tougher scrutiny on employees taking the extra hours.
The lede paragraph actually mocks this claim by Quinn:
Despite hopes to cut back on employees’ overtime pay in 2008, the school district spent more than $20,000 more last year than in 2007 – with three employees collecting more than $30,000 each.
Given Quinn’s failure to bring overtime spending in line, its a wonder that in July he will be up for his third raise within 12 months.
The article focuses on the Top 50 earners at the school district and provides a Top 10 list which shows that them taking over $2 million in salaries.
- Superintendent Richard Organisciak, $251,374
- Assistant Superintendent Jeffrey Korostoff, $194,330
- Assistant Superintendent Margaret Pecunia, $194,330
- Assistant Superintendent Diane C. Massimo, $187,533
- High school Principal Donald T. Conetta, $184,791
- Assistant Superintendent John B. Quinn, $180,574
- Middle school Principal William M. Evans, $172,022
- Director of pupil services Carol Feldman, $171,826
- Director of special/alternative education Yvette Goorevitch, $171,826
- Dr. Adrienne Weiss-Harrison, $170,597
During the school board elections, Kenneth Chorzewski pointed out that Organisciak makes about the same as New York State Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. New Rochelle has 11,500 students; New York City has 1.1 million students. On a per student basis, Organisciak makes 9500% more than Klein ($21.82 per student v. 23 cents per student).
It is worth noting that for the second time in about a month, Aman Ali of the Journal News has written an article about the New Rochelle school system that was not spoon-fed to him by the PR department of the New Rochelle School District (he wrote about the monkey/noose case). While welcome, we have to ask why the piece ran on Memorial Day when many people tune out the news to honor the fallen and hold cookouts and why they only published information for 50 people when last year they published information on all 2,200+ public employees. Still, we have to give credit where credit is due and this article is a rare example of honest-to-God journalism by Mr. Ali. It certainly shows that if he wanted to do so, he is capable of doing some real reporting. Anomaly or signs of things to come? We shall see.
on second thought…
SECURITY in the schools…wins hands down on the most egregious misuse of dollars in the budget. Yes, my mind has stop racing enough to know that this is the first issue to be addressed in my book. I’ll be back with some facts….
overtime
This topic was on the radio today, about New Rochelle’s overtime. Radio station 101 commented on the plumber for New Rochelle school system. They said he made $134,000 for the year and $34,000 was in overtime. WHAT justifies him making that much money. YOU can walk into any school in New Rochelle, and I bet you can find a lot of plumbing problems. I KNOW FOR A FACT, that many bathrooms have leaks, and there is always water on the floors. WHAT IS HE DOING DURING WORKING HOURS!