SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Town Manager Stephen A. Alfred recalls a Sunday in 1991 when he, Police Chief Vincent Vespia and other volunteers poked through a garbage heap for hours looking for a $2,000 eyepiece lost by a 9-year-old boy who was blind in one eye.

“Stranger things have happened,” Alfred said after the group’s unsuccessful search.

It’s also unusual that 17 years later Alfred and Vespia still run their departments. According to a Journal survey, they are among the top wage-earners in the town and the region.

Alfred — who became town manager on his 24th birthday — earned $157,339 in 2006, making him the highest-paid municipal employee in South Kingstown and Washington County, and the 10th-highest-paid employee in the state.

Alfred’s pay figure includes a $6,673 retroactive payment he received after Town Hall clerks and secretaries agreed to a new contract and received retroactive payments themselves.

Vespia, who became chief after 22 years with the state police — he retired on a Friday and reported to work for the town the following Monday — earned $87,579 in 2006, making him the seventh-highest-paid wage earner in town and the third-highest-paid police chief in the area.

Other municipal employees fared well, too. In 2006, the region’s highest-paid police officer, finance director and public works director all worked in this coastal town of nearly 30,000 residents, the largest community in Washington County.

The employee earnings were requested by the Journal as part of a statewide look at payroll spending during calendar year 2006.

The Journal’s compilation looked at the total gross pay, which is the total amount paid to employees before taxes are deducted. It excludes the cost of benefits, but it does include base salary or wages, and other forms of income, such as overtime, stipends and severance packages.

Police Lt. Gerald P. Richard earned $108,488 — nearly $21,000 more than Vespia — by working road details and extra shifts.

In fact, Richard made more money than any of the region’s police chiefs. He wasn’t alone: 7 of the town’s top 10 wage earners worked for the police department.

“The short answer is that they work available overtime,” said Vespia. “Some officers work more overtime than others.”

There’s always extra work for the department’s 54 overtime-eligible employees because officers take vacations or get sick, he said.

Although the overtime is welcome, the extra work means officers are working on holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, weekends, at night and on days off, said Patrick J. McMahon, president of the Washington County Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 40.

Additional work also exposes officers to more danger, he said.

Richard was injured last summer when a drunken driver slammed into his police cruiser. Richard, who was out of his car and talking to another driver, was thrown 30 feet. He suffered a fractured and dislocated shoulder, and torn tendons in his knee.

“He was on a special assignment to combat speeders and drunk drivers, and now his injuries may be too severe” for him to return to work soon, McMahon said.

Seniority is a factor too. Administrators here don’t move around much.

Finance Director Alan R. Lord, who earned $101,753 in 2006, ran a Saunderstown restaurant and worked as an accountant before landing a job at Town Hall in 1980.

Since then, the town’s bond rating has improved, enabling the town to borrow money at a lower interest rate. The town, which every year boasts a budget surplus, is also chasing deadbeat taxpayers.

“Our finances are in very good shape,” said Lord, 54, the town’s third-highest-paid employee.

Public Services Director Jon R. Schock, who earned $91,162 in 2006, worked for a construction management company before coming to South Kingstown in 1987. As director he oversees local roads, drainage problems, snow removal and dams. Last week he sent workers to repair a granite barrier atop a stone bridge over the Saugatucket River.

“Here, every day is different,” said the 49-year-old director, the town’s fifth-highest-paid employee.

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: Town of South Kingstown

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: South Kingstown School Dept.

pdavis@projo.com