There is a very strenuous physical fitness test, but the really difficult part of it is the selection process. In newport beach, tryouts are held in Feb with a 1000m swim and 1000m run swim run. Water is COLD in Feb, probably 56-58deg. Every year there are about 100-150 candidates for 30-40 seasonal positions. Those 30-40 are pretty badass

Yeah, it seems to me these are generally some of the more experienced guards... Sure the numbers seem excessive at first blush, but what's the cost of a typical wrongful death suit? Of course it's near impossible to put a hard # on stuff that *doesn't* happen, but if they can save/avoid X number of potential incidents that lead to litigation, I'd guess that's a bargain in the long run.

I am making the assumption they are making time and a half or double if they are working OT. If it is straight OT, I have less of a concern. But if it cost extra, then it is wasted money caused by poor management.

We recently had a FOIA request where the local newspaper published all the salaries for our City gov't, and by far the highest paid class of workers was mid-level Police & Fire through a ton of OT, easily making way more than all the higher-level managers & senior executives (who of course have higher base salaries, but don't get any OT).

It kinda reminded me of being back in the Navy, where all the married/family guys wanted all their weekends & holidays of and were willing to pay other guys to trade watches and/or take duty days off their hands, while the single guys (or at least those physically separated from wife/fam) would vacuum up all the extra hours they could and ended up w/ a lot more extra cash than the (typically) older guys.

In the abstract, there's gotta be some threshold level of hours/workload where somebody taking on too much OT must surely suffer some sort of marginal decay in the quality/effectiveness of each additional hour, but without some sort of measurement/metric or contractual cut-off to draw that line in a consistent and defensible manner, who's to say how much Jim Bob is capable of vs the next guy?

Google the LIRR scandal from a couple of years ago. The most egregious guy was getting paid $118k a year and submitted and was paid out for overtime worth an additional $344k. To earn it he'd have had to work 10 hours overtime everyday, 365 days a year. It'll shock you to discover, he didn't.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Government agencies pay overtime because they do not have to pay benefits on OT. It is just a straight time and a half salary. Benefit rates tend to be around 50 to 60 percent (separate argument, I get it), and add overhead, equipment, etc., and it is cheaper to pay fewer FTE more OT than hire additional FTE. Makes a good soundbyte for the media, but for the agency, its a better deal.

Certainly compared to the Education:pay ratio for footballers (both diveball and American), and quite a few other sports.

I agree. With the logic proposed, do you believe in capping executive comp?

See response above. They make time and a half and can be less effective if overworked. Plus OT typically is given out based on seniority. Bring in a new hire starting in at base pay and your total payroll goes down. And management should be salaried with no OT.

Yup, pension levels became astronomical as folks selectively use OT and vacation time to maximize benefits. That seems to have recently changed:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-30/california-supreme-court-pension-spiking

A cheaper option:

I don't see how this is anything other than mismanagement.

If people are doing that much OT, you need more people. I'm sure the managers see that all the lifeguards are happy to put in the OT and make that kind of money, but really they should be advocating for more lifeguards so less OT is required.

The importance of the job doesn't give them a free pass.

With the logic proposed, do you believe in capping executive comp?
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I believe in honoring the contract under which you were hired. If you are in management and signed a salary contract, then I'm comfortable with you getting that salary and accompanying benefits. If the terms of the contract say that you don't get more compensation for additional hours worked, then you don't get more hours for the additional hours worked. I also think that if you can complete your job duties in a more efficient than expected amount of time, then you get to go home early without any grief.

Same for the hourly lifeguards (or other position). If there's work to do and someone willing to do the work, I have no problem with someone taking home 1.5-2.0 wages. I'm assuming that the need for lifeguards in the OP exceeds the available workforce. And/ or people are calling off for one reason or another, thus opening up hours for the willing (which isn't a management problem). So, if the people really think this is a hiring concern, they likely need to increase the benefits package to attract a more qualified workforce. And, since this is likely a public expenditure and not a private enterprise, management may not have the power to change the job description/ compensation.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Monty has some serious explaining to do.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Robert Reich makes $261K a year teaching one class at Cal. The rest of the time he complains about the high pay of CEO's.

At least the lifeguards put in a full 40 hours + OT.

So the thing with OT, especially with Police and not firefighters at least in AZ. You have multiple departments that are way under strength in the PHX area. And when they open hiring they're only allowed to hire say 5 at a time, have 10 in the chute, and then boom hiring freeze. With cities like Los Angeles you can't do that, hell PHX proper shouldn't do that but they haven't put a full class through their academy in a decade. They're under strength by like 600 officers.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Maybe our resident retired LA Lifeguard will chime in here. //

Finally saw this thread, and have a couple things to say. First of all, as someone pointed out, it is cheaper to hire current guards on overtime than it is to hire new employees. They have done studies on the cradle to grave costs on this, and time and a half works out a lot cheaper. So folks working all that overtime are actually saving the dept, and taxpayers money, not costing them.


And of course since management knows this, they can adjust their hires to make sure they are never at full employment(most costly) and have just enough willing guards who will pick up that slack. You all have to keep in mind, this is not manufactured overtime and unnecessary, they are quite careful when it is called for and double checked by different supervisors.


And you also have to keep in mind, this overtime has nothing to do with pensions, it does not count towards final compensations at retirement. These are one off costs each year to just fill the vacancies created either by less than full employment, or in the case of a heavy emergency year. I know that a lot of the guards were drafted into the Covid service this past year, many working the testing centers and later vaccination ones. It was an all hands on deck kind of year for first responders, and of course the Covid situation made it a lot harder to just throw personal at problems, they had distancing, timing, and other issues that made many jobs a lot harder and take a lot longer.


And keep in mind when a person works the kind of overtime that nets the pay you see in a couple they like to highlight at the top, they are having no outside life whatsoever. They are working so much that anytime at home is spent sleeping, and being ready for the next shift. It is a huge sacrifice for those folks, but they also have some motivation to make a lot more money for their families, so they do it. I know they guy they mentioned who was top earner, and he does have a family and kids going to college, and a strong desire to do the best he can for them financially. It is a give and take, no one is partying on jets with the extra dollars they earn, and many end up paying a lot more in taxes because of the brackets they are now in.


And I haven't seen how they do the breakdown of the numbers they provided, but if they include the benefits package we all get, then that number is way inflated. That would be like saying someone whose salary is $75k, but when you add in their vacation, sick, holiday time, matching 401k funds, and a few other things that just accrue, and now it is $125k. You are still living off the $75k after taxes and a few other deductions, so the real take home number is like $50k. Those are the numbers for the average lifeguards that are full time, Captains make about 30% more, and Chiefs can make about $130 or so base salary. Takes a lot of years in the trenches to become a chief, and out of the 900 guards we employ, there are about 8 or so chiefs.


I remember when this exact same story came out about 5 or so years ago about the Newport lifeguards, and it had the same sensationalism as this one, without all the explanations. And this is not a lot of guys, because most do not like to work the overtime, and choose to spend it with their families. SO most of the extra hours are sucked up by a few that are willing to work everyday of the week, and fill in all those gaps. And they way that works, the one with the most overtime is asked last if they want it, so they do try and spread it around, just most pass on it and it rolls down to the ones willing.

Somebody else might chime in but the physical test is very hard.//

There are two parts to becoming an LA county lifeguard. The first is a winter swim, no wetsuit, no cap, no goggles, and it is a race for about a mile+ through the surf in and out. You race who shows up and the top however many they think they need that year get an invite to an oral interview. I know of a lot of kids who swim very well on teams and polo teams that do not make the cut, so not just finishing the course, but beating others who also want the job.


Once you pass all of that, have no felonies and pass background, you go to an 8 weekend training camp. That is where all the really tough stuff happens. If you show up 30 seconds late on any day, for anything, they lock the door and you are gone. Since everyone there already showed they are top OW rain swimmers, they really put the hammer down. Lots of soft sand running, learning to paddle board, jumping off speeding boats, helicopters, piers, etc. Lots of first aid, most end up EMT's, some go to paramedic school.


So a lot of time, energy, and money goes into the training, thus the cradle to grave costs for adding one more employee. That and the retirement is what makes it much more cost effective to just hire an existing person at time and a half.

You believe that there would be 10,000 drowning deaths per year in LA county if there were not lifeguards? If the beaches are truly this dangerous, LA should defund the police and get even more lifeguards, because I'm pretty sure even the LA police wouldn't claim them prevent 10,000 murders per year.

It's completely un-verifiable, utterly bogus "facts" like this that propagate some of these absurd public safety salaries.

How exactly would one even go about proving a "save" was a case where the person would certainly have died without intervention? I won't doubt that they have 10,000 "reportable events" every year, but to say each of these is a "Saved life" is completely absurd.

Or perhaps there are so many saves, precisely because there are lifeguards (people do dumb shit because they know someone will come bail them out), in which case it would be much cheaper (and probably nearly effective) to have no lifeguards and prominently post "not patrolled, swim at your own risk" and I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be 10,000 dead swimmers every year.

Why do they need to train people on CPR or to be EMT's? To the extent these qualifications are needed for most jobs, there are many people who already have these credentials (because it is expected you have them for many jobs). For most lifeguard jobs that only a high school kid can get, you need to already have CPR and basic first aid qualifications to even be hired. But yet for true professionals, if you can do well in a swimming race, having these skills is a non-issue (and if you already had them they wouldn't even consider you if you didn't place high enough in a race?). I'd love to hear an HR professional from the county or city explain the rationale of this process. We should have the police recruits run 400m heats on the track and only take the top finishers (only ones possibly fast enough to chase down a crook).

It's pretty clear there is no fiscal responsibility here, it would make a lot more sense to find people who already have the first-aid/EMT/paramedic skills (which would save training and dropout costs), see if they can pass a swim test and then provide limited situational training on the other things (like jumping out of boats or other things most people wouldn't reasonably be familiar with).

This sounds like more of a fraternity initiation, than a credible job screening and training program.

I don't think you read what Monty said right. He's saying that most of the people end up being EMTs, not that they are being trained to be one.

That said, I think it's the right approach. The number one important skill for a job like that is to be a strong swimmer in rough ocean conditions. It's massively easier to train someone to have the first aid skills in a short time period than it is to be a proper swimmer.

The way LA has approached hiring lifeguards is to make sure they are top swimmers in top physical shape. When you look at the entirety of someones career, injuries, sick time, wasted hours trying to bring along weak employees, they have found this to be the best cradle to grave original assessment. Some depts just use a pass or fail swim test, and then weight the oral and background interview a lot higher. And what happens there is that in 10 years or so, you start to see a huge drop-off in ability to actually do the job you were hired for.

If you are a marginal swimmer who swims maybe 18 minutes for a 1k swim, 10 years later as a group, a lot of you will have slipped past 22+ minutes. If you were a 10/11 minute swimmer, your fade as a group is going to be in the 14/15 minute range. Now you tell me who you want swimming out after your kid if their life is on the line, and time is of the essence? And that is just the 10 year, we have guards that work for 40 years in the towers. Of course they have to pass recheck swims twice a year, but it goes without saying that the top swimmers do much better 40 years later, than the ones that just barley made some pass or fail swim test.

It is pretty much a given that when guards get hired, they are at or near the peak of their swimming careers, and it fades from that point to retirement. So just makes sense to start at the highest level possible, and overall fades will minimized.

As to EMT training, how many high school kids do you know that have that? A lot of depts. do not require that, but we have also deemed that a huge benefit, to have each and every employee at that basic minimum level. Once again, if you or your kid breaks their neck body surfing, or falling on the bike path, do you want some kid that was just trained to put on a bandaid, or someone that can do that quick assessment and do the right thing in the critical early minutes that many injuries require?

I came to work one day and right before I walked into my station there was a head on crash of two cars doing 60 mph on PCH, and it triggered 4 more cars to rollover and or crash. I was first on scene immediately and had to triage 6 cars of people, and one guy with his brain showing on the side of the road. Because traffic backed up almost immediately, it took paramedics 20 minutes to get there, and my only help was more lifeguards from 2 miles away who could drive on the sand to get to me. Pretty sure all those people(all who lived) were pretty happy we were not just band aid responders...

This would seem to make the problem blatantly obvious. If the retirement benefits are so sweet that it is less expensive to pay 50% over base than to cover a new employee at base wages, you have a problem with the pension plan.

If I broke this down to a typical blue collar non union private sector job it would mean that people making 100K working from 25YO to 65YO would end up costing the company somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5M dollars over hiring someone else and paying insurance and other benefits. That means that on average a person retiring at 65, that lived to 78 would be getting ~115K in benefits which is actually MORE than what they were paying him when he was working. That's absolutely insane.

Someone else mentioned that this kind of stuff will come back and bite us in the but. Well in IL it pretty much already has and we do this type of thing regularly until recent reforms. Retiring at 55 and 75% of your wages with paid insurance is simply not sustainable. You can't work for 30-35 years and then retire for 25 years, it just is unsustainable.

This would seem to make the problem blatantly obvious. //

Not so obvious I guess, as you missed everything that goes into it but the pension. And unfortunately for Fire dept employees, the average life span after retirement is not so great. SO in case you missed it in my posts, or just cherry picked what you thought would suit your agenda, here are the other costs involved with a new employee.


You have all the training costs, which are quite substantial. You have the holiday pay, the sick pay, and the vacation pay that would not accrue to the overtime employee. You have the 401k matching funds, you have what ever bonus they may get, like bilingual pay, paramedic, or other longevity bonus's that come every 10 years or so. Those are the hard costs you can measure, and there are others that are intangible, like injuries, early retirements, etc.


Like I said, the overtime does not affect pensions at all, and retirement income is just a small part(the grave part) of what an individual employee costs over a lifetime.


Now this thread is not really about pensions per se, it was about the amount of money a person can make in a year working massive amounts of overtime. I think there were many other threads about pensions, and I agree not all are perfect. It took unions and management to put many in the mess they are in, but LA county lifeguards is not one of them. We are in fact quite well funded, and win awards from organizations that monitor that sort of thing. Cant say that for other CA pensions, but in this case, for this dept, all is good...

Sounds like the lifeguard service is pretty legit in how it is run.

Another thing people don't understand about large amounts of overtime is it all earned as straight up wages. In a high paying job it is paid back to gov't at the top marginal rates. In a place like California you could be paying something like 40-50 percent back to gov't between income tax and then sales tax when you go to spend.

If you are making that money in a cushy situation that is one thing but if you are doing it in a high stress and/or very physical job it is another.

Back in the 1990s in my job as a family doctor we were not paid very well compared to now. We all worked very long hours. Our overhead was high percentage wise. We started having a lot of trouble staffing our local emergency room because people figured out they were only getting to spend maybe 25 cents of every dollar they were making.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot