Waste of the Day: Staten Island Ferry Makes Millionaires
Topline: The free Staten Island ferry in New York City is actually costing taxpayers a lot of money. Seventeen of the engineers running the boats each earned over $1 million in 2024, totaling $23.1 million.
Chief Marine Engineer Mark Tettonis and his $1.7 million salary topped the list, according to OpenTheBooks’ database. Another 10 marine engineers earned between $500,000 and $999,000, and an additional 43 earned more than $200,000.
Key facts: Of the 30 highest-paid employees in all of New York City last year, 27 were chief marine engineers. Their base salary was only $169,520, but a lucrative new union contract allowed them to collect some of the largest back pay checks in city history.
The ferry employees had been working without a contract since 2010, but in September 2023 they signed a new deal that runs through 2027 and retroactively raised their pay for the years they had no contract.
That allowed Tettonis to make $476,184 in salary, $498,699 in overtime and $714,644 in other pay in one year.
Timothy Wood and Richard Rizzo each made $1.5 million, including over $400,000 in overtime and almost $700,000 in other pay each.
Overtime payments were so large because the normal work week for the ferry employees was 32 hours, not the standard 40 hours, the New York Post reported. The new contract increased it to 40 hours.
The Post also reported in 2018 that Wood was caught sleeping on the job when he was supposed to be monitoring the ferry during the morning rush hour.
The city tried to demote him to a regular marine engineer instead of chief marine engineer — arguing he could have caused a fatal crash similar to one in 2003 that was also caused by a sleeping employee — but a state Supreme Court justice sided with the union, who claimed that “there is no prohibition on closing your eyes while on duty.” The court also ordered New York City to pay Wood for 340 hours of potential overtime he lost while on unpaid suspension.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Summary: The Staten Island ferry might actually be cheaper for taxpayers if it charged a fee for tickets instead of making millionaires out of its employees
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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