FOSTER — Former police Sgt. Samuel Mooney earned $83,723.20 in 2006, topping the list of highest paid, non-School Department municipal employees that year. His boss, Chief Robert Coyne, was fifth on the list.

Six of the 10 municipal employees on the list were from the Police Department. Seven of the 10 people earning the top salaries are still employed by the town, while two have resigned, including Town Clerk Anne M. Irons and Acting Treasurer Lisa M. Mills.

The findings were part of a public information request The Journal made to the town Finance Department last year. The figures do not include the cost of benefits, but do include overtime, longevity bonuses and extra pay for stipends, special work details, and compensation for other responsibilities.

There were 135 employees on the town payroll in 2006; 57 employees worked in the School Department while 79 employees worked in other departments. The Foster-Glocester Regional School District, which runs Ponaganset High School and Ponaganset Middle School in Glocester and is jointly financed by the two towns, had 338 employees.

Mooney’s salary in 2006 can be attributed to the fact that the officer earned $7,439 in overtime pay. Mooney, who had worked for the district for 28 years before retiring in November 2007, earned a base salary of $76, 283.Following Mooney, the next highest paid non-School Department employees are also police officers. Although none of the officers earned as much as Mooney in overtime that year, they all accrued extra money working overtime shifts to boost their salaries.

Sgt. William J. Ziehl, second on the top 10 list, for example, earned a base salary of $68,480 and $4,041 in overtime.

Coyne said the department’s overtime budget was high for many years because the department was understaffed. When he joined in 2005, there were four police officers on duty, a number that he says was too low for even a town of Foster’s size.

In fiscal year 2006-2007, the Police Department spent $53,382 in overtime for its officers; dispatcher’s overtime, which is budgeted separately, amounted to $14,574, according to the town Finance Department.

However, the actual overtime numbers that year were much higher, Coyne said. Turnover and instability in the Finance Department caused problems in the department’s payroll, said Coyne, so that many hours of overtime were billed but classified together with salary earnings.

Coyne said the department’s overtime budget that year was closer to $90,000 for police officers and $30,000 for dispatchers. This year, the department budgeted $106,510 in officer overtime and $46,658 in dispatcher overtime.

The department has added four officers since 2005, bringing it to a total of eight officers, with two of them on duty for the first time this year. The added manpower will allow the department to rein in its overtime spending, Coyne said.

The department is proposing $84,721 for police overtime and $43,696 for dispatcher overtime next year, a decrease that brings the department’s overall budget down from $993,264 to $988,592 next year.

It also allows the department to run three, rather than two shifts, and have at least two officers on duty during the peak evening hours, Coyne said.

Of the top earners in 2006, three were department heads: the police chief, town treasurer and town clerk. Only one, Police Chief Robert Coyne, cracked the top five.

Town Treasurer Randy Rossi, who resigned March 13 to take a job as finance director for Smithfield, said before his departure that municipal department heads in Foster were among the lowest paid in the state.

Coyne’s salary was representative of that problem, which prevented the town from retaining high quality employees, Rossi said. Coyne earned $57,911.09 in 2006, making him the lowest-paid police chief in the state at the time, Rossi said.

The following year, the Town Council raised many departmental salaries so that they are now at or close to the state median salary, according to Rossi. Coyne’s salary jumped from $51,000 to $61,500. He stands to earn $63,345 next year.

The pay raises were not enough to keep other employees.

Irons, who had served as town clerk for 13 years, left to take the town clerk’s post in Narragansett in December. At the time, she said that higher pay and job security were her chief reasons for leaving (the town clerk’s job is a two-year, elected term in town). Rossi also cited a higher salary in Smithfield as his primary reason for leaving after just a year and six months on the job.

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: Town of Foster

pmarcelo@projo.com