Only with RTD is a pay cut actually a pay raise
April 17th, 2009
Should RTD Cal Marsella be sainted for accepting a pay raise while freezing his employees' pay?
In the wake of RTD forcing salaried employees to forego their scheduled 3 percent pay raise, the ever magnanimous and generous RTD chief Cal Marsella told the RTD board yesterday, “I am willing to take the same hit as everyone else.”
Just last month Marsella generously agreed to give up 3 percent of his $50,423 pay and bonus he had earned in 2009 – a tremendous and extraordinary sacrifice of $1,500. That alone would certainly make it tough for Marsella to feed his family on the remaining pittance of a salary that he earns of just over $300,000.
Yesterday he went a step further reducing his salary from $304,432 to $295,299 and his “performance” bonus from $36,286 to $27,577. Taxpayers should truly be grateful to have such a dedicated soul willing to take a bullet for the failing and disastrous transit agency.
But wait! Let’s look a little bit closer at this. As the Denver Post points out:
But Marsella, who had a base salary of $290,286 in 2008, is not forgoing all of the compensation increases he was eligible for this year.
His contract calls for a survey by RTD of compensation paid to transit agency general managers in five other major cities and based on that review, he was eligible for a 4.87 percent salary increase this year. He now will get a 1.87 percent increase, totaling $5,428.
The contract also guarantees Marsella a bonus totaling 2.5 percent of base salary for each of five performance goals met in 2008. Since RTD met all five, Marsella was eligible for a 12.5 percent bonus.
The new agreement reduces that bonus amount to 9.5 percent, or $27,577.
In the end we have RTD’s general manager appearing to take a pay cut but in reality, he is still getting a pay raise. This is while his employees’ salaries are truly frozen and his biggest project, FasTracks, is facing in excess of a $2 billion shortfall. Amazing.
In reading the Denver Post’s article, there is truly a “WTF moment” when you see this as well:
RTD director Noel Busck thanked Marsella on Thursday for voluntarily taking the pay and bonus reductions.
“Cal was under no obligation to make the change,” Busck said.
This would be a sad statement if it wasn’t so funny.
I am rarely a fan of unions but Local 1001 President Holman Carter had it right when he said, “It’s outrageous to say he’s matching the freeze on both salaried and union-represented employees when he’s actually taking increases, just not as big as he would get otherwise.”
As has been documented before, Marsella’s actually benefits go far beyond regular monetary compensation. See these related stories:
