NYCHA employees collect $96M in overtime

Employees of the troubled New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) pulled down $96 million in overtime payments in fiscal 2019, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website.Base pay and overtime for NYCHA employees are part of today’s update of the total New York City government payroll for the year that ended June 30.

Key Housing Authority data findings include the following:

• Overtime payments were collected by 8,806 of NYCHA’s 13,000 employees, fully two-thirds of all individuals employed by the authority during the fiscal year. Sixty-four NYCHA employees at least doubled their salary with overtime.
• The average overtime payment to all NYCHA overtime recipients was $10,848. The authority’s 19 supervisor plumbers led all NYCHA occupational titles with average overtime of $71,505.
• The authority’s biggest overtime earner was Robert Procida, a supervisor plumber whose $286,246 in total pay included $181,422 for 1,668 overtime hours worked.
• Of the 100 New York City employees who collected at least $100,000 in overtime in 2019, 30 worked at NYCHA, and Procida the NYCHA plumbing supervisor earned the second-highest overtime total of any city worker in 2019. The full list of the top 100 overtime earners can be found here.
• NYCHA’s overtime increase ran counter to the citywide payroll trend, which saw total overtime drop in fiscal 2019. It is unclear how much of the latest figure includes the housing authority’s reported ongoing reimbursement of overtime improperly withheld from workers in prior years.

In other city agencies and municipal authorities, the biggest overtime payment went to Daniel Fitzmaurice, a Department of Corrections plasterer, whose $282,594 in total pay included $189,371 for 1,959 overtime hours.

The list of highest-paid New York City employees in fiscal 2019 was topped by Lyndelle T. Phillips, listed as a Fire Department administrative staff analyst, who collected $500,000 last year. This is apparently the same Lyndelle Phillips who, as recently as 2018, had a lawsuit pending against the city claiming her skin color was the reason she was fired as the department’s equal employment opportunities officer.

The other top-paid city employees included Richard A. Carranza, Chancellor of Education ($357,973), Gail O. Mellow, President of Laguardia Community College ($352,197), Marina Stajic, Director of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene ($348,000) and Alexis Done, a pension investment advisor at the comptroller’s office ($347,699).