Peabody Light Plant Employees Among Top Wage Earners

While the city continued to struggle through another year of  budget cuts, a quartet of Municipal Light Plant higher ups collected big in 2010, combining to take home nearly $625,000 in total income.

The four employees, Light Plant Manager William Waters and engineers Michael Conwell, Ronald D’Andrea and Russell Dunn, topped the city’s annual list of highest paid employees last year, sparking outcry from both the public and leaders at City Hall.

While Waters saw an increase of just under 5 percent of his annual salary due to scheduled raises, jumping from just under $166,000 in 2009 to $174, 354 in 2010, the other three light plant employees enjoyed significant increases over their 2009 salaries thanks to a one-time payment of retroactive income due to a new labor deal signed by union officials last year. The most dramatic of these increases went to D’Andrea, who increased his pay by 40 percent over the previous year.

In addition to the names at the top of the list, nine other light plant employees grossed over $100,000 in 2010.

Mayor Michael Bonfanti, who spent much of Monday in meetings to negotiate the fiscal year 2012 budget, acknowledged that the high salaries for light plant employees were out of hand, but added that his office is powerless to change anything with the way the rules are currently set.

Salaries for non union light plant employees are set by the Municipal Light Plant Commissioners, an elected board that oversees all decisions made at the plant much in the same way the City Council does at City Hall. Bonfanti said in no uncertain terms that he felt the salaries were too high given the city’s economic state.

“If I were running the light plant the salaries would not be that high, I can assure you of that,” he said Monday. “Like most of the general public I am a bit perturbed at the salary numbers from last year, but those salaries are set by an elected board that is entirely separate from what happens here at City Hall.”

Amidst the concerns, Light Plant Commissioner Robert Wheatley staunchly defended his board’s decisions, pointing out that the engineering department has been understaffed by two to three employees over the past two years. He praised  Waters and his employees as being among the best in the country in their field.

“They are actually doing yeoman’s service over there. That engineering force is the finest in the country and over the years have maintained the finest electric system in the New England area,” he said. “We have cut the management crew to a minimum and the engineering department, which calls for 10 to 12 employees has been working with 8 to 10 people for some time so they are understaffed and working very, very hard. I have no quibbles with the money they are making.”

Wheatley also praised Waters for his dedication to his job and said the board is offering a competitive salary that he would get elsewhere if he were to go on the market today.

“Managing the light plant  is a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week job 365 days a year,” he said. “He is always on call.”

School Superintendent Dr. C. Milton Burnett was the highest paid official not working at the light plant, bringing home just under $142,000, followed by Police Chief Robert Champagne at just over $138,000.  Both men, along with the majority of other high-priced employees actually saw a pay cut in 2010 due to a calendar anomaly that saw one less pay period in 2010.

Finance Director Patricia Schaffer said the occurrence takes place every seven years and is due, in part, to calendar changes during leap years.

While acknowledging that salaries have skyrocketed across the board in recent years, Bonfanti said the city’s salary spending is actually less than many other communities in the area.

“Compared to other places we are on the lower side, including the mayor,” he said. “The school administration salaries have risen recently, in part because of education reform, but I must say I have a lot of respect for what our superintendent does and I think he does a great job for us.”

Bonfanti, who will be leaving office when his term is up at the end of the year, earned $95,233 last year, which is modest when compared to other North Shore mayor's salaries which average between $110,000 to $120,000 per year. The City Council's finance committee recently voted not to increase the salary of the mayor's office because of the difficult economic climate.

With a full plate of issues and little time to complete them, Bonfanti said he would not be able to see through a change in the way that the city handles light plant salaries going forward, but urged whomever takes his place to look into bringing that issue back under the control of City Hall.
 
“The one thing you could do is try and get that back under the control of the mayor, which is something they were able to do over in Danvers,” he said. “But that is very time consuming and would take a lot of litigation and policy change. I urge our next mayor to maybe look into making that change.”