Custodians are cleaning up on overtime in Newton Public Schools, with nearly a quarter earning at least $20,000 in extra hours last year as the district became embroiled in a stifling contract dispute between teachers and the School Committee.
A Herald analysis into Newton’s payroll for the 2023 calendar year revealed that 21 of the 89 custodians employed in the district made at least $20,000 in overtime pay, a statistic one financial watchdog called “appalling.”
The review also found that 13 custodians used the extra pay to skyrocket their salaries to over $100,000 — with the highest raking in $75,347.12 to boost their $88,383.58 in regular earnings to $166,780.86.
There are 22 school buildings in the district — 15 elementary, four middle and two high schools and an integrated preschool program.
A fire captain and police lieutenant topped the list of overtime earners in the city of roughly 84,500 people, as they took in $81,446.5 and $77,147.26, respectively, the payroll shows.
This is the latest example that highlights the “rampant unchecked spending in local services,” causing property taxes to soar in Greater Boston, said Paul Diego Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
“I have never heard of that before. It’s actually quite appalling,” Craney said of the staggering custodian overtime pay in Newton while speaking to the Herald on Friday. “It’s pretty obvious the people that are entrusted by the taxpayers to have oversight in that school district (don’t), and as a result, employees are gaming the system.”
Officials provided the Herald a copy of the payroll on the heels of the Newton Teachers Association and School Committee reaching a contract agreement after a 2-week strike, one of the longest actions in recent history across Massachusetts public schools.
The strike between Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 caused the union to rack up $625,000 in fines. Meanwhile the district, which enrolls nearly 12,000 students, incurred more than $1 million in costs related to compensatory services and court fees.
Students and families couldn’t take the traditional February break, and parents have filed lawsuits against the union.
Custodians are in a separate union from the teachers, one that has had to deal with their respective disputes with the School Committee over the years.
Custodial overtime is driven by three major factors, the district’s director of communications, Julie McDonough, told the Herald. Those include coverage for custodians who are on sick leave or paid time off; school programs and events that occur after school hours or on the weekends; and the rental of school buildings to outside organizations.
“We believe our figures to be accurate as overtime is submitted by custodial staff, reviewed by the facilities office, and then submitted to payroll, who does a final review,” McDonough said in an email.
The district pays overtime for work completed over 8 hours per day, or 40 hours per week, at a rate of 1.5 times the regular hourly rate Monday to Saturday, McDonough said. It pays twice the regular hourly rate for Sundays and holidays, she added.
“Custodial overtime pay is factored into the school budget each year,” she explained. “This pay is largely offset by our Use of School Buildings program, which generates revenue through the rental of our facilities to outside organizations. Current staffing allows for flexibility as events, rentals, and programming fluctuate year to year and limits longer term liabilities.”
The overtime figures have been relatively consistent over the past decade, McDonough said.
A Herald review of the 2022 payroll revealed that three custodians cracked the city’s top 10 highest overtime earners. The custodian with the second largest pool amongst the cleaning crew made $71,579.27 by clocking extra hours, but that number dropped to $51,858.87 in 2023.
In 2015, the district awarded a bid to New York-based business management consulting firm Core Management Services to conduct an independent evaluation of its custodial program.
The review, involving custodial quality inspections at 18 schools, found that the facilities were “not currently being cleaned to minimum acceptable quality standards for K-12 districts.” A recommendation included outsourcing services that could have led to savings “as high as $1,078,000 per year,” according to a report outlining the findings.
The School Committee turned the recommendation into a proposal which received fierce backlash from the Newton Custodians’ Association. The union filed more than 25 charges of unfair treatment against the committee, with the state Department of Labor Relations becoming involved as a third party, Newton North High School’s student newspaper, The Newtonite, reported in April 2017.
“It never (came to fruition), and it is not being considered now,” McDonough told the Herald.
“If I was a property taxpayer in Newton, I would be demanding some resignations,” Craney said. “The person in charge of oversight does not care. They’ve let this happen to the point where it’s being completely abused.”
