Kern County firefighters have dangerous, difficult jobs.
They're required to work around the clock under the worst conditions nature can throw at them. It's a job that can kill you in a heartbeat. It's a job most people couldn't do.
But.... for putting their lives on the line, the county pays its firefighters pretty well.
Fire captains make about $78,000 a year.
Engineers make about $60,000.
Firefighters, the basic rank among first responders in the department, make about $45,000.
And hundreds of kern county fire department personnel supplement their incomes by tens of thousands of dollars each from an overtime budget that is half the size of the regular payroll.
That's the finding in a 17 News examination of records recently made public by a landmark court case. It's a court case fought by the Bakersfield Californian.
In 2005 ... 21 employees made more than 50-thousand dollars in overtime. Nearly 300 made more than 20-thousand in OT.
Of the 865 people on the payroll that year ... 124 made more than 100-thousand in 2005
Year-to-date figures for 2007 show that figure going up.
As of september 11th ... with 913 people on the payroll ... 22 employees had made more than 50-thousand dollars in overtime ... about the same as in all of 2005.
And there are 29 others who have made more than 40-thousand in ot ... putting them on course to finish 2007 with 50-thousand or more.in overtime for the year. .
But both 2005 and 2006 pale in comparison to 2006, when crews battled the massive day fire near the grapevine.
In 2006 fifty-eight 58 KCFD employees made more than 50-thousand dollars in overtime.
Dozens made more than 60-thousand dollars in OT. Several made 70- .... 80 .... and 90-thousand dollars in overtime alone. One man, an engineer with a base salary of $66,000, earned $103,000 in overtime in 2006.
Add that to the 87-thousand in overtime he made in 2005 and the 80-thousand in ot so far this year and he's made a total of 460-thousand in the last three years.
The caveat here is the the fire department says much of the overtime is due to those big state fires that require the help of fire agencies from a multitude of counties. And we're told the money is repaid to the state. Seeing as though it's neither feasbile nor cost-effective to have a statewide task force on standby for those big fires, the county says this is the most efficient use of taxpayer money.
All of the salary information was provided to us on disk, as required by law. That means we can post the salary information here for you to browse. It's a basic Excel spreadsheet with the employee's name, job classification, and pay.
What do you think? Is this an invasion of prviacy or the public's right to know? Do YOU want to see the records posted here?
