Nice work if you can get it
Sewer district labor costs skyrocket
GOVERNMENT | Bruce Rushton
Three years ago, the Springfield Metro Sanitary District paid at least $100,000 in compensation for a dozen of the district’s 53 employees.
Today, 30 of the district’s 57 employees are costing ratepayers at least six figures apiece for salary, sick time and health insurance. Raises have far outstripped the rate of inflation.
The district’s current collective bargaining agreement with operating engineers calls for 3 percent raises in each of the first three years of the five-year contract, then 75-cent hourly increases for the final two years. While salaries have gone up by 9 percent in the past three years under the deal, the inflation rate has been 4 percent over that same time period.
Under the current contract with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 399 based in Chicago, the district also contributes to the union’s pension plan, a payment that hadn’t previously been required. Since payments began in the fiscal year ending in May 2013, the district has paid $155,000 into the union pension fund and expects to contribute an additional $80,000 this fiscal year.
Union employees aren’t the only ones who have received raises more than double the rate of inflation. Consider Justin Reichert, the district’s human resource officer who is also a lawyer who works at the offices of Bruce Stratton, the district’s general counsel. In 2010, Reichert earned slightly less than $20,800 a year. Today, Reichert is paid $62,400. The district also pays $10,000 for his health insurance, boosting the tab to more than $72,400 a year. Three years ago, Reichert was paid $30,000 per year plus nearly $8,900 for health insurance.
Gregg Humphrey, district executive director, said that Reichert works between 16 and 20 hours per week, including two full days at district offices each week. He is also available to handle matters as they arise throughout the week, Humphrey said.
Why has Reichert’s pay tripled in the space of six years and more than doubled in the past two years? Government regulations related to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as well as laws pertaining to family medical leave have grown more complex, Humphrey says.
“We’ve found that human resources and family medical leave just takes a lot more time,” Humphrey said.
At $158,995 a year in salary and a total compensation package of $191,849, Humphrey is the third-highest paid employee of a local government body in Sangamon County. Only Douglas Brown, who earns $210,000 per year as chief utility engineer for City Water, Light and Power in Springfield, and John Davis, CWLP electric division manager who earns $171,182, make more than Humphrey, whose salary has increased by nearly 15 percent since 2013 and is up 30 percent since 2010.
Illinois Times left phone messages and voice mails for all five members of the sanitary district board that is responsible for setting salaries and approving union contracts. None could be reached for comment.
Salaries, sick time, and health insurance are costing the district $870,000 more today than three years ago, an increase of more than 18 percent. Meanwhile rates have skyrocketed to pay for sewer plant improvements and upgrades. Before a series of rate hikes began in 2008, the average residential customer in Springfield paid less than $7 for district sewer service. The monthly tab now exceeds $20 and could go as high as $30 when the final rate hike kicks in next year, according to a March story in the State Journal-Register.
Humphrey said that wastewater treatment plant upgrades, not salaries, are responsible for rate increases. Still, other local governments have lower employee costs than the sewer district.
For example, just five of the 50 employees in the Urbana and Champaign Sanitary District have six-figure compensation packages.
According to district documents, the Springfield district, which pays the full cost of premiums, is paying $24,816 per year for health insurance for 35 of the district’s 57 employees. In the case of Julie Stratton, a receptionist/secretary who is the daughterin-law of the district’s general counsel, the district’s health insurance costs aren’t much less than her annual pay of slightly more than $28,000. The district pays $10,000 per year for another 12 employees, and the remaining 10 employees are somewhere in the middle.
In an email, Reichert said that the district covers premiums because employees are exposed to human waste that puts them at risk of contracting hepatitis, cholera and other illnesses that could be carried home. Such risk, Reichert wrote, isn’t present in other industries.
The top health insurance premium paid by the Urbana and Champaign Sanitary District is $18,513 for fewer than a quarter of the districts employees.
Sangamon County pays a maximum of $13,212 to cover an employee and his or her family, and employees contribute to premiums. In Springfield, the city, which is self-insured, budgets $15,400 per employee to cover health care costs, according to city budget director Bill McCarty.
With the exception of the police and fire departments, Springfield in recent years has tied raises to the rate of inflation in most collective bargaining agreements, McCarty said. Employees get raises equal to the rate of inflation, he said, with contracts mandating increases of at least 1 percent and no more than 3 percent. Contracts with the police and fire unions specify annual raises lower than received by sewer district employees.
“We haven’t done any 3 percent (raises) that I’m aware of in quite some time,” McCarty said.
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected]
