At least they do something useful and identifiable. Unlike those who drain public and similar payrolls performing indiscernible and useless so-called jobs
Ever think about why they're working so much overtime? Its not easy to find lifeguards qualified to fill those roles. Now imagine paying them less and figure out what would happen.
Really? They can't find qualified lifeguards in LA county for $100k/year? This guy is in the Ocean all the time he's billing? It seems like as the head guy he would have more administrative duties that could be helped by assistants. When you have that much overtime year after year, there is either poor planning, or cheating going on.
Besides working that much overtime as a lifeguard can't be safe for them or the public. (He has to be working close to 80 hrs/wk to be making that much in overtime.
I tend to think what would happen would be that swimmers would do as swimmers have done on every beach for millennia... they'd tend to be more careful, more diligent in obeying rules and warnings of the beach, and more responsible for their lives and the lives of their kids. Is that so terrible?
If you think this is outlandish pay, you've clearly never actually been a lifeguard. The media's portrayal of lifeguarding as a cushy role in which you spend the majority of your time sunbathing and flirting is completely off-base. Even in a fairly sedate pool setting, the constant focus demanded by this job is extremely draining, not to mention the mental and emotional strain of knowing that many lives depend upon your vigilance. I've not donned the red swimsuit and whistle since college but still have vivid memories of going into the pool after someone, hoping that I'd get there in time. Thankfully, I always did—but especially in a beach setting, lifeguards aren't always so lucky.
This does not seem out of line. Lifeguards are very hard to find. In my state most beaches are closed or sans lifeguard most of the summer due to lack of Lifeguards. Lifeguards have a unique skill that takes a specific type of physical capability and specific training. In California $60/hrs would be reasonable or maybe a little low for lifeguard pay. With the extreme shortage of Lifeguards that does exist, they probably can easily get 40 hours of per week. Not all Lifeguards are likely making the amounts reported but those willing to put in the time and have the unique skills and training a lifeguard requires, can take part in this opportunity.
Excellent inputs and your recommendations towards solving the problem at the root cause should be aggressively pursued. Id there a taxpeyer focus group who might take on the task? Greg Millard
Something I've found to be true almost every time, when someone has that much ridiculous OT pay, they're lying about it.
First thing that came to mind was that State Trooper in Louisiana (I think). People like you were doing records requests and his OT was so eye-watering, they decided to follow him for a week or two. Not only was he not actually working many of those hours, he was moonlighting on top of the hours he claimed.
I am a retired beach lifeguard captain for LA county. The writer of this article rightly questions these wages. What the author fails to touch on are the policies that create the scenarios where these individuals are racking up huge amounts of overtime. Many of these scenarios involved pulling lifeguards out of their beach assignments, to go work as part of logistical support teams on wildfires. While some of these assignments might involve using their medical training, most of these assignments are clerical or tech support in nature, skills that don’t require the specialization of a lifeguard to perform. Quite a few of these logistical/support assignments could be easily performed by office personnel who have completed the required courses making them eligible to fill those roles.
Another point that the author fails to mention, is that when Lifeguard or Fire personnel are deployed to these major incidents, someone has to backfill their regular assignments. This is done with overtime. Almost very time a lifeguard or firefighter is assigned to one of these major incidents, it creates double overtime. Towards the end of my career for two summers I worked between 150-160 hours of overtime each month , June, July, and August. All this overtime was in assignments on the beach, and a majority of it was me backfilling someone who had been taken out of their beach assignment and deployed to do logistical support on a major incident.
One thing the tax payers of LA county need to know, is that when a lifeguard or firefighter is deployed to one of these incidents, the county is able to recoup the cost of their wages from either the state or the feds. That includes the personnel that end up backfilling those deployed.
What this author and the taxpayers of LA county need to look into are the policies that take create all this overtime. The author and the taxpayers also need to look into other options like using not as highly paid office personnel, or even retirees to fill these logistical roles at major incidents.
Some good info here, Fred. Thanks for commenting. I never would have known some of these issues otherwise. Same goes for "Another WorldView" below, et. al.
As an outsider to the profession, however, i think most communities may continue to push back hard on those high pays bc they just are obscenely high to most people, even if justified. One of the best ideas is to not use highly skilled/trained lifeguards for lower skilled OT work when possible, as you suggested. Seems like an easy and logical place to start.
So I worked in a foundry, and doing 300 hours in a month required 12-hour days 26 days of each 28-week pay period. I'd do 13-days, day off, 13 days, day off. And those days off were nothing but recuperating.
That's a non-critical position, where over-fatigue is really only an immediate danger to myself.
That's a nonsensical workload generating subpar performance for a critical emergency position such as a lifeguard.
Even still, I wasn't breaking $100k gross income after doing that for 4 months straight (it was to save up for a larger downpayment). Let alone an eye-watering 246k just in OT on a 150k salary.
That person would have had to claim roughly 4,200 hours worked that year alone to rack up those numbers. That would require working 11.5 hours a day EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I can say as a State-trained Ocean Lifeguard, who's worked at the ONLY private beach in the state, that Ocean Lifeguards have an enormous responsibility, and do highly skilled, hard, and important work. LA is a very expensive place to live, and Permanent Guards who do the job well, deserve to be well-compensated, and offered a career that receives comparable pay to Firefighters and Cops. And based upon what you've shown here, THEY DO. Almost every LA County Lifeguard I've ever met, permanent or season, it well-trained and highly competent. I know at least one of the Guards on that list. Minus his Overtime pay - his salary and benefits seem generous, but not unreasonable. And the secret of Overtime - is that you have to work long hours to earn it.
By law, you get time and half pay for those hours - sometimes more. So, unless we think that the Overtime hours are being doled out on some invidious and discriminatory or improperly politicized basis...I can't really object to people earning it, if they're doing a good job.
There may be some reasonable calculus involved, regarding whether you assign overtime hours, or you just hire more people, which adds more benefits, personnel and hiring costs. All told - aside from their apparent complicity in the Nuremberg Crimes surrounding 'Covid-19 policy' - I can't really complain about the LA County Lifeguards, or the service that they provide to the community. They work hard, and paying them well ensures that you have highly motivated, well trained emergency and rescue services, when you need them. And as a surfer and private/volunteer lifeguard, I exist and work closely with and alongside them, on a daily basis.
Pool guards, by contrast, earn much less, but also have much less specialized or challenging job. Not to denigrate them, but that's an Apples and Oranges comparison. That's a job usually done with much less training, by kids in highschool or college. It's largely uneventful, and requires much less physical fitness, or specialized knowledge and experience. Literally anyone who can swim, and perform CPR/First Aid, can do it. And the numbers on rescues per hour worked, show the differences.
A better group to investigate along these lines - are the notoriously and perennially corrupt, inept and incompetent LAPD. I know personally of a Senior Lead Officer (ACOSTA) who earns more the $300k a year, while actively refusing to assist the community with an identified public nuisance at a local park - and in fact, may even be conspiring with those who are creating the nuisance, that he won't act substantially to abate.
For the record, the guy with the 150k salary, working DOUBLE a normal work year (so 4,160 vs 2080) would have only netted him 225k in OT. He would have had to work 4,354 total hours for the year to accrue that much OT. That's 12 hours a day, every day, for the entire year.
Sorry but that seems illogical. And if the explanation is, "oh he probably did 16 or 20 hour days" that's ridiculous. Out in the sun, posted to respond to emergencies, almost half of that shift is subprime readiness and ability.
PLUS - typically the guys working on the Boats have 24 hours on 48 off kind of schedules. As for the Captain I know (one of the salaries listed) - he doesn't spend too much time in the Towers, but rather in Trucks and at one of the several local HQ/Substations - much of it doing scheduling and command level stuff...though if a call comes in overnight, or an incident needs oversight or supervision - he'll roll to those, too.
To say that there's a problem with "subprime readiness and ability" - you should probably have something specific to point towards, as evidence to back that up... I've seen no evidence of that, down on the beaches. If there were a bunch drownings, and failures by the LACoLGs to respond in a timely appropriate and effective manner - well then this would be a point well-taken... But there is no such evidence.
So then the calculus should be - are we saving money, by working fewer people, for more hours...? Or would the costs associated with keeping a larger workforce on the payrolls be offset, by lower hourly payouts...? And then - whom would we be attracting and retaining, in the workforce, if we lowered the compensation individually?
So far, I don't see anything broken, that actually needs fixing.
When I used to work overtime, the first few hours were 1½ pay; after a certain number of hours per day this became 2x pay; after a certain number of hours per week, then the rest of the week became 2x pay. So if the Lifeguard's contract is similar, it's possible to be working a few days a week, all at 2x pay (doubletime).
I wonder if you factor in doubletime pay, how difficult is it to make the hours?
Working long hours to accumulate lots of extra pay can be tiring and therefore dangerous in many occupations and therefore not benefiting the general public.
Yea, the top earner would have had to work 12 hours a day, every day, almost to a T (I rounded to 150,000 and 246,000 for less complicated numbers and the math comes out to 4354 hrs in a year - 11.9288 per day).
No way he was at peak performance during large swathes of those numbers.
It's possible. If at the beginning of the week a certain threshold of hours are reached, the rest of the work week is either given "off" or paid at double pay (doubletime)? Many contracts have a doubletime provision.
Not all overtime is simply paid at 1½ pay. Lots of overtime can get to a doubletime pay situation or even larger pay amounts, like 2½ pay situations.
The LA County Lifeguards have a pretty strong record of safety and service. I understand what you're saying, but not sure it really applies here... The Boat guys often work 24 hour shifts - but less days in a week. One of guards mentioned, is Remy, a Captain. He often works long shifts, and overnights, when call volume is low, so I'd imagine that like a Firefighter - he can get some winks during the quiet hours, while still being ready to go, as soon as he gets a call.
He is salaried - and by State law - every hour over a certain number gets paid at the Overtime rate. It sounds like you're desperately looking for fraud, or failures in the service, that aren't there.
You want to look for fraud - let's talk about LA County's totally incompetent and corrupt "Health Officer" - (not a real) Dr Barbara Ferrer (she's a bureaucrat, with an unrelated PhD, not an MD) - who's hollowed out the County Health Bureaucracy, replacing more competent figures, with Cronies that will take direction from Bill Gates, Tedros the Tigrayan Terrorist, and the WEF. She makes ~$500k a year, to follow the bad recommendations of the aforementioned, until local officials and Cities rebelled and announced that they weren't going to follow her policy-(not 'science' )driven recommendations... At which point she relented, based on the 'newly available information' (that she'd lost any credibility).
How does her gross overpay justify the lifeguards overpay. I'm sorry half a million a year is overpay. Especially for doing paperwork. They could hire assistants and whatnot. That much overtime is corruption.
You're assuming that it's "overpay". If they work the hours - often long shifts 24 hours or more. They earn the paychecks. You're also assuming that this is paperwork. But when a call comes in in the middle of the night - it makes sense to have an experienced party to take it. They get all kinds of calls - everything from missing swimmers to boats capsizing and running aground. The LA County Guards operate a fleet of Boats. The top earners are trained and experienced EMTs and paramedics.
If there weren't overtime belng paid - you'd have more employees, which means increased costs for Disability Insurance, Workers Comp, Medical and Dental Benefits, etc... Barring an indepth calculus of costs and benefits - this report seems pennywise, but pound foolish.
What about on-call pay? They have to be paid for that. When they are off the clock, but still on call for 24-hours per day. Even salaried workers who pull on-call shifts have to be paid above their salary. Much of the time on-call shifts are only voluntary, but they still have to be filled on a weekly basis.
The best part is: Absolutely *all* this money was stolen from american citizens, who would eventually face death if they really resisted paying these taxes.
The average home price in Los Angeles is close to $1 million, or 8 years salary. Lifeguards provide much more value to society than, say, hedge fund managers or companies that buyout other companies then drive them int the ground.
Alright ... Now you've shown exactly who you are... We could probably afford to allow a few hedge fund managers to drown. But saving decent people, who simply get in over the heads, and lack the ocean experience, fitness and swim skills to survive, is just cruel and foolish. Many are children. Some are parents. The cost to society, were we just to wash our hands of all those people, and 'let nature take its course' is unthinkable, on several levels.
Probably less than 5% of the beaches I have swum on had life guards. Most people lived thru the event every time. I'm sure not EVERY time, but I'd be curious to know the average number of rescues per week for these guys.
Hire more people and stop sending the equivalent of executives out to do grunt work. You don't send out somebody that makes $75/hr straight time to do $20/hr work and then pay them overtime to boot. In CA it can be 2x regular pay.
They're paid by destroying productive jobs and economies - profiting off of a race to the bottom kind of predatory capitalism. Lifeguards save lives - which maintains and builds productive capacity, in addition to the less sociopathic humanitarian concerns. It's a good investment.
I work directly with ER nurses and most of them left their jobs to become travel nurses and went per diem…this was so they could make more than double their original salary. Not attacking RN’s, I believe they deserve it. Just letting you know they make a pretty penny and YES, it’s well deserved!
Who’s overseeing the budget ? Why aren’t they aggressively recruiting so there is no/little overtime needed? The supervisor/director should be penalized if overtime is at this level. Would never fly in private industry.
So lifeguards rescuing patrons from a moving ocean with severe rips aren’t “saving lives”…just Dr’s save lives?? Also, a lot of Dr’s do make this $. Not all do, but not all lifeguards make this $ either…only the ones willing to work the OT! 🤦♂️
Sorry bud, not buying what you're selling. Lifeguard, regardless of amount of OT do not deserve this kind of money. Police officers save lives and put their lives in danger every day and work OT and don't earn this kind of money, and paramedic, nurses, etc., etc. Your type of thinking is why we are over-taxed in CA.
I don't agree on the police officers thing. They occasionally save lives, but more often, they ruin lives for the purpose of revenue generation for non-criminal acts, or victimless "crimes"
And many LEO make ridiculous amounts of money and benefits for not very hard or dangerous work.
Reduce their compensation. Their are plenty of people that will do this job for 1/3 of that pay. Many counties outsource their life guard services to private companies, that would also be a solution. It's not that difficult of a problem to solve.
Also, what do you think the turnover rate would be should you pay 1/3 the salary?? What do you think the cost of hiring is? Cost of training? Cost of state licenses? Then when guards are constantly leaving, you’re either paying OT or leaving towers/patrols vacant! What are those costs?
Less trained and qualified candidates also increases injuries…what’s the workers comp costs?
See you think it’s as simple as pay less, but you honestly are speaking way out of your league with ZERO insight into how Emergency Services operates and what truly is required to keep you and your family safe 24/7, 365! Yet everyone takes it for granted until they need it…then the level of service, quality of employee, training, and pay, are all worth it and all matter haha
Ok, and see what level of service you get and what quality of applicant you get! I have many friends who are lifeguards in LA Co and OC and they wouldn’t do it for 1/3 the pay!
At least they do something useful and identifiable. Unlike those who drain public and similar payrolls performing indiscernible and useless so-called jobs
Ever think about why they're working so much overtime? Its not easy to find lifeguards qualified to fill those roles. Now imagine paying them less and figure out what would happen.
Really? They can't find qualified lifeguards in LA county for $100k/year? This guy is in the Ocean all the time he's billing? It seems like as the head guy he would have more administrative duties that could be helped by assistants. When you have that much overtime year after year, there is either poor planning, or cheating going on.
Besides working that much overtime as a lifeguard can't be safe for them or the public. (He has to be working close to 80 hrs/wk to be making that much in overtime.
I tend to think what would happen would be that swimmers would do as swimmers have done on every beach for millennia... they'd tend to be more careful, more diligent in obeying rules and warnings of the beach, and more responsible for their lives and the lives of their kids. Is that so terrible?
Wow you solved drownings!!!
Sarcasm? No need. You suggested imagining what would happen, so i did.
If you think this is outlandish pay, you've clearly never actually been a lifeguard. The media's portrayal of lifeguarding as a cushy role in which you spend the majority of your time sunbathing and flirting is completely off-base. Even in a fairly sedate pool setting, the constant focus demanded by this job is extremely draining, not to mention the mental and emotional strain of knowing that many lives depend upon your vigilance. I've not donned the red swimsuit and whistle since college but still have vivid memories of going into the pool after someone, hoping that I'd get there in time. Thankfully, I always did—but especially in a beach setting, lifeguards aren't always so lucky.
This does not seem out of line. Lifeguards are very hard to find. In my state most beaches are closed or sans lifeguard most of the summer due to lack of Lifeguards. Lifeguards have a unique skill that takes a specific type of physical capability and specific training. In California $60/hrs would be reasonable or maybe a little low for lifeguard pay. With the extreme shortage of Lifeguards that does exist, they probably can easily get 40 hours of per week. Not all Lifeguards are likely making the amounts reported but those willing to put in the time and have the unique skills and training a lifeguard requires, can take part in this opportunity.
Is it a sign that, your state has it's head up it's prostate, to pay lifeguards more than the GOVERNOR OF ANY STATE?
Has any governor saved a life?
Excellent inputs and your recommendations towards solving the problem at the root cause should be aggressively pursued. Id there a taxpeyer focus group who might take on the task? Greg Millard
Something I've found to be true almost every time, when someone has that much ridiculous OT pay, they're lying about it.
First thing that came to mind was that State Trooper in Louisiana (I think). People like you were doing records requests and his OT was so eye-watering, they decided to follow him for a week or two. Not only was he not actually working many of those hours, he was moonlighting on top of the hours he claimed.
I am a retired beach lifeguard captain for LA county. The writer of this article rightly questions these wages. What the author fails to touch on are the policies that create the scenarios where these individuals are racking up huge amounts of overtime. Many of these scenarios involved pulling lifeguards out of their beach assignments, to go work as part of logistical support teams on wildfires. While some of these assignments might involve using their medical training, most of these assignments are clerical or tech support in nature, skills that don’t require the specialization of a lifeguard to perform. Quite a few of these logistical/support assignments could be easily performed by office personnel who have completed the required courses making them eligible to fill those roles.
Another point that the author fails to mention, is that when Lifeguard or Fire personnel are deployed to these major incidents, someone has to backfill their regular assignments. This is done with overtime. Almost very time a lifeguard or firefighter is assigned to one of these major incidents, it creates double overtime. Towards the end of my career for two summers I worked between 150-160 hours of overtime each month , June, July, and August. All this overtime was in assignments on the beach, and a majority of it was me backfilling someone who had been taken out of their beach assignment and deployed to do logistical support on a major incident.
One thing the tax payers of LA county need to know, is that when a lifeguard or firefighter is deployed to one of these incidents, the county is able to recoup the cost of their wages from either the state or the feds. That includes the personnel that end up backfilling those deployed.
What this author and the taxpayers of LA county need to look into are the policies that take create all this overtime. The author and the taxpayers also need to look into other options like using not as highly paid office personnel, or even retirees to fill these logistical roles at major incidents.
Some good info here, Fred. Thanks for commenting. I never would have known some of these issues otherwise. Same goes for "Another WorldView" below, et. al.
As an outsider to the profession, however, i think most communities may continue to push back hard on those high pays bc they just are obscenely high to most people, even if justified. One of the best ideas is to not use highly skilled/trained lifeguards for lower skilled OT work when possible, as you suggested. Seems like an easy and logical place to start.
>150-160 hours of OT each month.
So I worked in a foundry, and doing 300 hours in a month required 12-hour days 26 days of each 28-week pay period. I'd do 13-days, day off, 13 days, day off. And those days off were nothing but recuperating.
That's a non-critical position, where over-fatigue is really only an immediate danger to myself.
That's a nonsensical workload generating subpar performance for a critical emergency position such as a lifeguard.
Even still, I wasn't breaking $100k gross income after doing that for 4 months straight (it was to save up for a larger downpayment). Let alone an eye-watering 246k just in OT on a 150k salary.
That person would have had to claim roughly 4,200 hours worked that year alone to rack up those numbers. That would require working 11.5 hours a day EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I can say as a State-trained Ocean Lifeguard, who's worked at the ONLY private beach in the state, that Ocean Lifeguards have an enormous responsibility, and do highly skilled, hard, and important work. LA is a very expensive place to live, and Permanent Guards who do the job well, deserve to be well-compensated, and offered a career that receives comparable pay to Firefighters and Cops. And based upon what you've shown here, THEY DO. Almost every LA County Lifeguard I've ever met, permanent or season, it well-trained and highly competent. I know at least one of the Guards on that list. Minus his Overtime pay - his salary and benefits seem generous, but not unreasonable. And the secret of Overtime - is that you have to work long hours to earn it.
By law, you get time and half pay for those hours - sometimes more. So, unless we think that the Overtime hours are being doled out on some invidious and discriminatory or improperly politicized basis...I can't really object to people earning it, if they're doing a good job.
There may be some reasonable calculus involved, regarding whether you assign overtime hours, or you just hire more people, which adds more benefits, personnel and hiring costs. All told - aside from their apparent complicity in the Nuremberg Crimes surrounding 'Covid-19 policy' - I can't really complain about the LA County Lifeguards, or the service that they provide to the community. They work hard, and paying them well ensures that you have highly motivated, well trained emergency and rescue services, when you need them. And as a surfer and private/volunteer lifeguard, I exist and work closely with and alongside them, on a daily basis.
Pool guards, by contrast, earn much less, but also have much less specialized or challenging job. Not to denigrate them, but that's an Apples and Oranges comparison. That's a job usually done with much less training, by kids in highschool or college. It's largely uneventful, and requires much less physical fitness, or specialized knowledge and experience. Literally anyone who can swim, and perform CPR/First Aid, can do it. And the numbers on rescues per hour worked, show the differences.
A better group to investigate along these lines - are the notoriously and perennially corrupt, inept and incompetent LAPD. I know personally of a Senior Lead Officer (ACOSTA) who earns more the $300k a year, while actively refusing to assist the community with an identified public nuisance at a local park - and in fact, may even be conspiring with those who are creating the nuisance, that he won't act substantially to abate.
For the record, the guy with the 150k salary, working DOUBLE a normal work year (so 4,160 vs 2080) would have only netted him 225k in OT. He would have had to work 4,354 total hours for the year to accrue that much OT. That's 12 hours a day, every day, for the entire year.
Sorry but that seems illogical. And if the explanation is, "oh he probably did 16 or 20 hour days" that's ridiculous. Out in the sun, posted to respond to emergencies, almost half of that shift is subprime readiness and ability.
Yeah...what Kelikaku said...
PLUS - typically the guys working on the Boats have 24 hours on 48 off kind of schedules. As for the Captain I know (one of the salaries listed) - he doesn't spend too much time in the Towers, but rather in Trucks and at one of the several local HQ/Substations - much of it doing scheduling and command level stuff...though if a call comes in overnight, or an incident needs oversight or supervision - he'll roll to those, too.
To say that there's a problem with "subprime readiness and ability" - you should probably have something specific to point towards, as evidence to back that up... I've seen no evidence of that, down on the beaches. If there were a bunch drownings, and failures by the LACoLGs to respond in a timely appropriate and effective manner - well then this would be a point well-taken... But there is no such evidence.
So then the calculus should be - are we saving money, by working fewer people, for more hours...? Or would the costs associated with keeping a larger workforce on the payrolls be offset, by lower hourly payouts...? And then - whom would we be attracting and retaining, in the workforce, if we lowered the compensation individually?
So far, I don't see anything broken, that actually needs fixing.
'... working DOUBLE a normal work ...'
When I used to work overtime, the first few hours were 1½ pay; after a certain number of hours per day this became 2x pay; after a certain number of hours per week, then the rest of the week became 2x pay. So if the Lifeguard's contract is similar, it's possible to be working a few days a week, all at 2x pay (doubletime).
I wonder if you factor in doubletime pay, how difficult is it to make the hours?
Working long hours to accumulate lots of extra pay can be tiring and therefore dangerous in many occupations and therefore not benefiting the general public.
Yea, the top earner would have had to work 12 hours a day, every day, almost to a T (I rounded to 150,000 and 246,000 for less complicated numbers and the math comes out to 4354 hrs in a year - 11.9288 per day).
No way he was at peak performance during large swathes of those numbers.
Those numbers scream fraud.
It's possible. If at the beginning of the week a certain threshold of hours are reached, the rest of the work week is either given "off" or paid at double pay (doubletime)? Many contracts have a doubletime provision.
Not all overtime is simply paid at 1½ pay. Lots of overtime can get to a doubletime pay situation or even larger pay amounts, like 2½ pay situations.
The LA County Lifeguards have a pretty strong record of safety and service. I understand what you're saying, but not sure it really applies here... The Boat guys often work 24 hour shifts - but less days in a week. One of guards mentioned, is Remy, a Captain. He often works long shifts, and overnights, when call volume is low, so I'd imagine that like a Firefighter - he can get some winks during the quiet hours, while still being ready to go, as soon as he gets a call.
Then he should be salaried, no OT.
He is salaried - and by State law - every hour over a certain number gets paid at the Overtime rate. It sounds like you're desperately looking for fraud, or failures in the service, that aren't there.
You want to look for fraud - let's talk about LA County's totally incompetent and corrupt "Health Officer" - (not a real) Dr Barbara Ferrer (she's a bureaucrat, with an unrelated PhD, not an MD) - who's hollowed out the County Health Bureaucracy, replacing more competent figures, with Cronies that will take direction from Bill Gates, Tedros the Tigrayan Terrorist, and the WEF. She makes ~$500k a year, to follow the bad recommendations of the aforementioned, until local officials and Cities rebelled and announced that they weren't going to follow her policy-(not 'science' )driven recommendations... At which point she relented, based on the 'newly available information' (that she'd lost any credibility).
How does her gross overpay justify the lifeguards overpay. I'm sorry half a million a year is overpay. Especially for doing paperwork. They could hire assistants and whatnot. That much overtime is corruption.
You're assuming that it's "overpay". If they work the hours - often long shifts 24 hours or more. They earn the paychecks. You're also assuming that this is paperwork. But when a call comes in in the middle of the night - it makes sense to have an experienced party to take it. They get all kinds of calls - everything from missing swimmers to boats capsizing and running aground. The LA County Guards operate a fleet of Boats. The top earners are trained and experienced EMTs and paramedics.
If there weren't overtime belng paid - you'd have more employees, which means increased costs for Disability Insurance, Workers Comp, Medical and Dental Benefits, etc... Barring an indepth calculus of costs and benefits - this report seems pennywise, but pound foolish.
What about on-call pay? They have to be paid for that. When they are off the clock, but still on call for 24-hours per day. Even salaried workers who pull on-call shifts have to be paid above their salary. Much of the time on-call shifts are only voluntary, but they still have to be filled on a weekly basis.
The best part is: Absolutely *all* this money was stolen from american citizens, who would eventually face death if they really resisted paying these taxes.
Democracy is a failure.
Somehow I feel better about this than someone earning millions for playing a game.
Wait until you see what the LA County & LA City Firefighters are making in OT! Yikes!
Compare those numbers to the private sector Paramedics who barely make more than the minimum wage.
The average home price in Los Angeles is close to $1 million, or 8 years salary. Lifeguards provide much more value to society than, say, hedge fund managers or companies that buyout other companies then drive them int the ground.
Nah, not that much value. Let natural selection weed out the idiots in the water.
Alright ... Now you've shown exactly who you are... We could probably afford to allow a few hedge fund managers to drown. But saving decent people, who simply get in over the heads, and lack the ocean experience, fitness and swim skills to survive, is just cruel and foolish. Many are children. Some are parents. The cost to society, were we just to wash our hands of all those people, and 'let nature take its course' is unthinkable, on several levels.
Disagree.
Evolution.
You first.
I have (swum?) in the ocean (more than once) (and in CA) and lived!
I didn't take the vax and lived.
I didn't wear a mask and lived.
I've worked 90-100 hrs/week outside in the desert SW for 15 weeks in a row, and lived.
Took a week off and did it all over again (for less than $5/hr + per diem)
and lived.
Your Turn.
You confirmed it. You're a Dick.
Probably less than 5% of the beaches I have swum on had life guards. Most people lived thru the event every time. I'm sure not EVERY time, but I'd be curious to know the average number of rescues per week for these guys.
Hire more people and stop sending the equivalent of executives out to do grunt work. You don't send out somebody that makes $75/hr straight time to do $20/hr work and then pay them overtime to boot. In CA it can be 2x regular pay.
Hedge fund managers aren't typically paid with taxes.
They're paid by destroying productive jobs and economies - profiting off of a race to the bottom kind of predatory capitalism. Lifeguards save lives - which maintains and builds productive capacity, in addition to the less sociopathic humanitarian concerns. It's a good investment.
I can tell you that nurses taking direct care of Covid infected patients made nowhere near Lifeguard pay even with OT.
Few nurses can't compete with lifeguard pay.
Believe you me, nurses do get PAID.
You are wrong.
I work directly with ER nurses and most of them left their jobs to become travel nurses and went per diem…this was so they could make more than double their original salary. Not attacking RN’s, I believe they deserve it. Just letting you know they make a pretty penny and YES, it’s well deserved!
Nurses I know make about $100-$150K a year. Assuming a standard benefit load of 40% that's $210K--pretty close.
Who’s overseeing the budget ? Why aren’t they aggressively recruiting so there is no/little overtime needed? The supervisor/director should be penalized if overtime is at this level. Would never fly in private industry.
Agree. To do it year after year, there's something going on.
While not unexpected, the fact that no top earners are Latino clearly points out the modus operandi of American society.
What? Race has nothing to do with it.
Oh sure this is good use of public money. People are nuts that think this is ok. Many doctors that save lives every day don't make this kind of money.
So lifeguards rescuing patrons from a moving ocean with severe rips aren’t “saving lives”…just Dr’s save lives?? Also, a lot of Dr’s do make this $. Not all do, but not all lifeguards make this $ either…only the ones willing to work the OT! 🤦♂️
The thing is, that top earner would have had to work 12 hours a day, every day.
Either he wasn't actually working 12 hours every day, or he if he was, he was not at all in a peak performance position.
Sorry bud, not buying what you're selling. Lifeguard, regardless of amount of OT do not deserve this kind of money. Police officers save lives and put their lives in danger every day and work OT and don't earn this kind of money, and paramedic, nurses, etc., etc. Your type of thinking is why we are over-taxed in CA.
I don't agree on the police officers thing. They occasionally save lives, but more often, they ruin lives for the purpose of revenue generation for non-criminal acts, or victimless "crimes"
And many LEO make ridiculous amounts of money and benefits for not very hard or dangerous work.
Give an honest response and solution since you understand how the public safety system works
Reduce their compensation. Their are plenty of people that will do this job for 1/3 of that pay. Many counties outsource their life guard services to private companies, that would also be a solution. It's not that difficult of a problem to solve.
Also, what do you think the turnover rate would be should you pay 1/3 the salary?? What do you think the cost of hiring is? Cost of training? Cost of state licenses? Then when guards are constantly leaving, you’re either paying OT or leaving towers/patrols vacant! What are those costs?
Less trained and qualified candidates also increases injuries…what’s the workers comp costs?
See you think it’s as simple as pay less, but you honestly are speaking way out of your league with ZERO insight into how Emergency Services operates and what truly is required to keep you and your family safe 24/7, 365! Yet everyone takes it for granted until they need it…then the level of service, quality of employee, training, and pay, are all worth it and all matter haha
Nobody is forced to go swimming at the beach. Put up a sign, "swim at your own risk".
Sorry I'm not buying it.
Ok, and see what level of service you get and what quality of applicant you get! I have many friends who are lifeguards in LA Co and OC and they wouldn’t do it for 1/3 the pay!
We're not talking rocket science here. It doesn't take a medical degree to be a lifeguard.
So what’s your solution?