27 City Light workers top $100,000 in overtime pay

Overtime was so lucrative at Seattle City Light last year that 27 workers made at least $100,000 of it by working extra hours.

Eleven of those workers topped $200,000 in total income.

A shortage of skilled workers, construction projects around the city and damage from the December windstorm prompted the city-owned utility to rely on employee overtime — with some workers averaging 65 to 70 hours a week.

Three line workers became the highest-paid employees in the city, based on city data, earning even more than City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco's 2006 salary of $224,019.

In all, City Light paid out $25.4 million in overtime last year, more than double what it paid in 2005. "We are concerned about it," Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said. "It raises some issues for us about productivity and worker safety when you work that many hours. In some cases, it does seem excessive."

After bringing up the issue at a recent meeting with Ceis, Carrasco started an overtime audit.

Dennis Sovern is a crew chief who averaged 80 to 90 hours a week last year and made $88,101 in regular pay, plus $136,324 in overtime. He said he works safely.

"I'm really fortunate because I'm gifted in I don't get wore out," he said. "I'm able to take a five- or 10-minute nap and I'm fine. But if I'm too tired to work, I don't work. I just don't go." Sovern, who has worked for the utility for 27 years, was the city's third highest-paid employee in 2006, according to the data.

Crew chief Michael Brooks, who also is on the top-10 list of highest-paid workers, declined to comment. The Seattle Times could not reach the other eight workers.

Chris Heimgartner, City Light's customer-service and energy-service delivery officer, said not all the overtime pay comes from working overtime. The union contract says that if a break between a regular shift and an overtime shift is less than eight hours, the regular shift is also paid at double time.

Based on some quick math, Heimgartner estimated the top earners, who earn base pay of about $33 an hour, probably worked an average of 65 to 70 hours a week in 2006. Line workers, who repair and install power lines, make some of the highest hourly wages in the city. Overtime does not factor into pension payments.

Heimgartner said the extra hours don't appear to affect safety, noting that the injury rate has stayed level. Still, the city's top officials are worried about the long hours.

The utility had budgeted $10 million for overtime in 2006, and ended up paying more than double. The overtime will not affect electricity rates given the utility's large budget, Carrasco said, but "it's a significant amount of money that we're watching very closely."

City Light had the highest overtime payments last year compared with other city departments — averaging $13,742 per employee, according to a Seattle Times analysis. The Fire Department was second with an average of $8,027, followed by the Police Department with $7,850.

Utility officials say they had to ask employees to volunteer for overtime because of a worker shortage. The utility has 50 vacancies among its 180 line-worker positions, and is recruiting to fill those jobs. Enrollment in the apprentice program is close to capacity, but it takes four years to fully train apprentices for line-worker jobs.

Carrasco said he is evaluating whether to bring in contractors to keep up with the workload.

While acknowledging the 2006 overtime was "unusually high," Heimgartner said even if the utility filled those 50 positions, it would still need people to work overtime. He doesn't know whether it's cheaper to pay overtime to existing employees or to hire new employees to do the work.

Construction throughout the city, such as for the Sound Transit light-rail line, required crews to work during off hours so they would not cut power during business hours. In some cases, developers pay for the cost of repairs and connections. The portion developers paid last year "is not a really big piece" of total overtime costs, Heimgartner said.

The December windstorm also played a part in the high overtime, though it accounted for only about an eighth of the total overtime. Heimgartner estimates a line worker could have earned an extra $10,000 in the days after the windstorm that cut power to 175,000 City Light customers.

Sovern, the crew chief, said customers want quick service.

"The reason that we are so far up [on the payroll] is that when people's lights are out, we got out and responded to them," he said.

"We're always available. We always go."

Staff reporters Justin Mayo, Brian Alexander and Mike Carter and staff researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report. Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com