Their ship got here in.
Fifteen Staten Island Ferry employees at the moment are millionaires after flattening seven-figure paydays final fiscal yr — together with one marine engineer who was infamously caught on digital camera sleeping on the job, placing passengers’ lives in danger, data present.
The windfalls are due to the town inking a long-stalled union contract in September 2023 that offered hefty raises for about 170 employees and big lump sums for 13 years of again pay.
Metropolis taxpayers pour at the very least $108 million a yr into the well-known free ferry that runs throughout NY Harbor from St. George to decrease Manhattan.
The largest prompt millionaire was Mark Tettonis, a 30-year chief marine engineer who lives in a $1.8 million Bay Ridge residence. His base wage is $169,520 — however he pulled down $1,689,518 this previous fiscal yr.
Chief marine engineer Timothy Wooden, one other 30-year vet, pocketed $1,559,299. He made headlines for being suspended 30 days and demoted in 2015 after a digital camera captured him nodding off on the job whereas the John F. Kennedy boat docked throughout rush hour.
A decide in 2018 scuttled the sleepy seaman’s demotion, shopping for the union’s argument that “there isn’t a prohibition on closing your eyes whereas on responsibility.”
Tettonis didn’t reply to requests for remark. A girl who answered Wooden’s cellphone mentioned she didn’t suppose he’s “allowed to talk” about his seven-figure haul earlier than hanging up.
Town shelled out a whopping $32.7 million alone to 30 present and retired chief marine engineers and undertaking managers, in keeping with a Publish evaluation of metropolis payroll knowledge for the fiscal yr ending June 30.
Again pay, lump-sum bonuses and fringe advantages — greater than $21 million value — made up the majority of the $32.7 million in funds.
The 30 previous and current Division of Transportation staff every pocketed over a half-million bucks — making them the highest-paid metropolis employees final fiscal yr. Eighteen turned millionaires, together with three retirees.
Ken Girardin, analysis director for Empire Middle for Public Coverage, known as the swabbies’ haul “foolish on on a number of ranges.”
“You had a contract hanging out for greater than a decade; then you might have the town comptroller not solely jacking up the so-called prevailing wage, however then additionally making use of it retroactively 13 years — again to when David Paterson was nonetheless governor and when ‘Homeland’ and ‘All My Youngsters’ have been nonetheless on TV,” he mentioned.
“All aboard the S.S. Payday.”
The chief marine engineers largely owe their eye-watering plunders to a choice by NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, who units and enforces prevailing wage charges for metropolis employees.
In March 2023, Lander decided chief marine engineers ought to have been raking in $64.61 an hour again in 2010, much like their non-public sector counterparts, as an alternative of the $40.32 they have been truly making — with their pay price rising to $79.71 by 2022.
Doug Kellogg, director of the People for Tax Reform State Tasks, mentioned “you’d suppose” the events concerned “are participating in piracy the way in which they’re looting New York taxpayers.”
“In unhappy actuality, the system is simply rigged as much as favor a protected class of public worker unions no matter whether or not they do their job or nod off,” he mentioned. “It’s this waste and abuse that drives taxpayers away and has the town dealing with continued $10 billion-plus deficits.”
DOT spokesman Vincent Barone defended the staggering hauls as deserved for mariners who endured a few years with none pay bumps.
“Our Staten Island Ferry crews are important employees offering essential, protected service to greater than 15 million passengers annually whereas having labored with out a labor contract for greater than a decade,” mentioned Barone.
Lander “decided the prevailing wage and advantages as required by legislation, and the New York Metropolis Workplace of Labor Relations and the Marine Engineers’ Useful Affiliation negotiated a contract primarily based on that dedication,” mentioned the comptroller’s spokesperson Chloe Chik.
The contract — which runs retroactive from November 2010 by means of January 2027 — will value taxpayers $103 million, together with $53 million in extra bills, officers mentioned.
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