Long Beach city workers earn an average of $128,731

City employees working full-time in Long Beach eaed an average of $128,731 in total compensation last year, with a fire captain making at least three times more and topping the list of highest paid public employees in the city, according to an open-records watchdog group.

City employee total compensation, including benefits, stood at close to $550u2009million in 2015, according to records released last week by the nonprofit Transparent Califoia, a conservative-leaning organization.

Long Beach spokeswoman Kerry Gerot said in an email that employee compensation composes 21u2009percent of fiscal year 2015 spending.

The average in total compensation for full-time workers jumped 3.8 percent over 2014, but city officials attribute that to an additional pay period, not a wage increase. The extra pay period occurs every 11 years.

In terms of average total compensation, Long Beach was the 23rd highest out of the 60 cities in Los Angeles County listed in a Transparent Califoia survey, which excluded the city of Los Angeles. Long Beach is the second largest city in the county.

The average full-time worker countywide received $131,600 in total compensation last year. Downey was No. 5 in the survey, at $150,129.

Transparent Califoia is affiliated with the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a nonprofit think tank advocating limited govement. Robert Fellner, the research director for organization, said public sector salaries are a fraction of total compensation, with some public employees taking packages more than triple their base pay.

“The only reason public employee salaries matter is because they come at the expense of the taxpayers, who on average make much less,” Fellner said. “Because that is all taxpayer-funded, we think it’s important to get that out there.”

The group last week released data on 379u2009cities and 42u2009counties statewide.

Long Beach had 409 full-time employees eaing more than $200,000 in total compensation in 2015. However, Gerot said the average, nonpublic safety city worker eas $68,759, including benefits.

Still, Long Beach pays its employees more than other cities of comparable size. Sacramento has 97 workers making more than $200,000 a year, and Fresno has just 35.

“Fresno seems to be a less affluent area, so I’m not that surprised, and they’re one of the best, if not the best, in terms of keeping their retirement costs low,” Fellner said. “They have reasonable retirement benefits, whereas every other public agency in the state is generous, which equates to expensive retirement benefits. Sacramento too. They have never really jumped out as having high retirement costs.”

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Gerot said Sacramento and Fresno have lower base wages due to regional differences.

“Sacramento and Fresno have a significantly lower cost of living than Long Beach, and as such, their market can bear lower salaries,” Gerot said.

Highest paid worker

According to Transparent Califoia, last year the highest-paid public employee in Long Beach was fire Capt. David W. Shetland, who eaed $426,278 — more than the mayor, city manager, police chief and his boss, the fire chief.

In the report he is listed as the second-highest paid fire captain in the state.

In an interview, Shetland said the salary is an anomaly due to a disability settlement. He won a court case in 2015 and was essentially awarded 22 months of salary in one year.

Gerot confirmed that the data resulted from a reinstatement from a disability retirement ordered by an administrative law judge.

According to Transparent Califoia, Shetland’s regular pay in 2015 was $125,639, which Fellner said was in line with other Long Beach fire captains. His overtime cost $49,258.

Overtime costs

Firefighters and swo officers typically work more overtime and have bigger benefit packages than other public employees. Gerot said overtime can be the result of many factors.

Vacancies contribute to an increase in overtime, and Long Beach has had difficulty recruiting qualified applicants to fill positions, she said. Overtime can also be the result of an increase in responding to emergencies, such as power outages, storm events, significant traffic accidents or fires, Gerot said.

She said by phone the city must fill public safety shifts “regardless of whether you have the bodies, and that’s where overtime comes in.”

The public safety unions were big backers of Measure A, the 10-year sales tax increase voters passed June 7.

Measure A backers, including the police and fire unions, said some of the money would be used to reorganize the police department’s command structure and hire more officers.

In pushing the measure, Mayor Robert Garcia said the police department would need to hire about 10 new officers to re-establish its southe patrol division. The fire department would need to hire 12 additional firefighters to restore an engine company at Belmont Shore.

Steve James, president of the Long Beach Police Officers Association, said ahead of Measure A passing that staffing levels have made it difficult for officers to schedule vacation time, since it’s hard for the department to assign an officer to a vacationing colleague’s shift without having to pay overtime.

In 2009, the city budget allocated funding for about 1,000 swo officers. Staffing now is closer to 800 officers, James has said.