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In
the Press
Article
published Mar 25, 2007
Men rule
city wages
By Michael
Brindley
Telegraph Staff
NASHUA
– Things may not be so fair for the fair sex.
Of the top 50 earners working for the city of Nashua in 2006,
only five were women.
Looking at the departments that made up the highest-paid employees,
the lack of women isn’t as surprising as it may seem. Employees
from the police and fire departments, both male-dominated fields,
made up three-quarters of the top 50 earners in the city last
year. These employees were often able to boost their earnings
with overtime pay.
By comparison, teachers, most of whom are women, make a set wage
and don’t have the benefit of overtime.
Yet the city’s top educator was also the highest earner. At $158,161.22,
Julia Earl, the former superintendent of schools, topped the list
of employees, taking home nearly $37,000 more than former Fire
Chief Roger Hatfield, who, at $121,377.98, came in a distant second.
Earl and Hatfield no longer work for the city. In February, the
school board paid $250,000 to buy Earl out of her three-year contract
with the city, and Hatfield retired after 23 years of service.
After Earl, only four females cracked the top 50:
n Jennifer Seusing, principal of Nashua High School South (eighth).
n Maureen Lemieux, director of administrative services (35th).
n Kathy Hersh, director of community development (41st).
n Carol Anderson, the city’s chief financial officer (42nd).
Seusing was supposed to earn a salary of $96,000 last year, but
got a $13,000 bump in pay after she was assigned the task of running
both of the city’s public high schools after former Nashua High
School North Principal Pat Corbin left for a new job.
Seusing, who worked her way up through the ranks as a teacher
and a principal at Dr. Norman W. Crisp School, said education
isn’t a field in which there are opportunities to make a lot of
extra money.
On the lack of women at the top of the list, Seusing said, “It
doesn’t surprise me.”
Seusing’s husband, John Seusing, is a captain with the Nashua
Police Department. She pointed out that because of the nature
of the jobs, police and fire employees have more opportunities
to earn overtime and extra pay.
Katie Merrow, executive director of the New Hampshire Women’s
Policy Institute, said the trend in Nashua reflects what is going
on statewide, both in the public and private sectors.
According to a study conducted by The Women’s Policy Institute
called “The Economic status of Working Women in New Hampshire
,” of the people making more than $100,000 in the state in 1999,
only 13 percent were women.
“There is disparity in this area everywhere,” she said. A
fair wage?
Merrow said areas such as education traditionally pay less than
fields such as police and fire.
“The occupations that have a higher concentration of women tend
to pay less than those with a higher concentration of men,” she
said. “Care-giving industries like teaching tend to pay less than
those that emphasize physical labor and strength.”
On average, teachers earned $45,536.29 in 2006, but also have
the summers off. Merrow said the city could consider studying
the issue, tracking the hours worked and the education requirements
for jobs, and look at whether women are being paid equally.
The driving factor that pushed many of the police, fire and public
works employees into higher earnings was overtime. In its budget
for the 2008 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2007, to June
30, 2008, the police department is requesting $1,513,900 for overtime.
Last month, Alderman-at-Large David Deane requested information
from the city regarding total compensation and how much of that
was overtime. The city provided the same information to The Telegraph
last week.
“We always hear comments that people aren’t being paid equitably,”
said Deane, who chairs the budget committee. “There’s actually
some good earnings going on.”
Deane said the wage information is something that everybody in
the city should look at and understand. Deane said he is trying
to get a better understanding of where overtime is coming from.
“With the budget coming in, we need to get a better idea of the
overtime situation,” Deane said. “We need look at how the overtime
is disseminated, to who and what the process is.”
Deane said overtime also affects employee pension plans, because
public employees’ plans are calculated on their three highest
years of payment.
Alderman-at-Large Fred Teeboom took issue with what he said were
some employees receiving bonus pay outside the merit pay framework.
“In my opinion, the aldermen never approved that,” Teeboom said.
“I’m saying you cannot pay employees outside the merit grid.”
Teeboom added, “The whole compensation picture is unclear, in
my opinion.”
Police Chief Tim Hefferan said paying overtime is part of making
sure the city is secure. If an officer isn’t available, someone
has to come in to cover the shift, he said.
“Much is made about that sometimes,” he said. “But the nature
of the business is even if we were fully staffed, there would
be overtime. There is overtime associated with the public-safety
business.”
Hefferan said his department is 17 police officers short of being
fully staffed. He said that leads to more overtime, but said that
is partially balanced by the money saved from having vacant positions.
Officers are paid overtime for a variety of reasons, whether it’s
going to court to testify in a case or just to cover a shift,
he said. City’s highest paid cop
The third-highest-paid employee in the city is a police sergeant.
At $118,723.18, Sgt. Michael Masella topped even acting superintendent
of schools Christopher Hottel, who earned a stipend above his
base salary of $101,816. Behind Masella were:
n Hottel, assistant schools superintendent, $117,892.53.
n Daniel Cronin, deputy fire chief, $110,476.41.
n Scott Howe, police captain, $110,205.67.
n Michael Mansfield, assistant fire chief, $109,886.97.
n Seusing, principal, $108,340.86.
n Brian Morrissey, executive deputy fire chief, $108,153.92.
n Michael O’Brien, deputy fire chief, $107,193.25.
Masella, who earned more than any other police employee, was set
to earn a salary of $65,717, but through overtime and other extra
payments, nearly doubled his salary.
In total, police earned $3,554,430.54 in extra pay, consisting
mostly of overtime, but also including payments for things such
as sick days, stipends and bonuses. Employees working for fire
rescue earned a total of $3,434,548.60 in extra pay.
The fire department has $698,331 available for overtime in Mayor
Bernie Streeter’s proposed budget, which had its public hearing
last week and is currently in the hands of aldermen. Streeter
is proposing a budget of $222 million for next year, which falls
under the city’s spending cap.
Doreen Beaulieu, who oversees payroll for the city, said not all
of the overtime is paid for by taxpayers; some of the work is
paid for by outside vendors, who hire police officers for events.
Two city employees who more than doubled their salaries were John
Frattalone, the landfill watchman, and Monte Freire, the street
watchman. They work for the city’s public works department.
In 2006, they were both set to earn salaries of $37,107.20, but
with overtime, they took home more than $95,000 each. Last summer,
public works director Richard Seymour said their positions were
going to be replaced with a video camera security system, but
last week, he said the installation of the system was delayed.
Seymour said the system, which cost $141,000, will be installed
soon, and that both watchman positions will be phased out. The
system will cost $72,000 to operate per year, said Seymour , which
means there will eventually be a savings.
“We’ve had some delays, but we wanted to make sure we did it right
the first time,” he said.
With nine cameras strategically placed around the city, Seymour
said the new system “gives us better eyes.”
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Quick Facts
» Women made up only 10% of full-time workers earning more than $100,000 per year in New Hampshire in 1999.
» Women made up nearly 60% of New Hampshire’s full-time workers earning less than $15,000 per year in 1999.
» Among married, full-time workers, women earned 68% of what men earned in 1999 in New Hampshire.
» One in 14 working women in New Hampshire earns minimum or near minimum wage.
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