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Comment by dilippkumar | Hacker News Reader

> In 2018, the city created a pooper scooper team, each member of which received annual compensation of about $211,000 that year. Given the inflation that has occurred since that time, scooper compensation may be close to $250,000 per year today.

I needed to read this to convince myself that I’m not asking for or expecting outrageous compensation at work.

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That number, of course, is made up. The real paycheck for the scoopers is ~$71k:

"As members of the city's "Poop Patrol," workers are entitled to $71,760 a year, plus an additional $112,918 in benefits, such as healthcare and retirement savings, the San Francisco Chronicle reported." (https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-poop-patrol-em...)

Want to reduce that cost further? Nationalize health care and increase social security.

I don’t understand—don’t benefits typically make up around 30% of all compensation in the US? Why are the insurance/retirement costs so high in this particular case?

Depends on the job, but in my experience no, it's closer to 50%.

In general, government jobs have even better insurance and retirement benefits than a "regular" job. CALPRS requires retirement contributions in the neighborhood of 30% of salary

If this is CalPERS, CalPERS is about 70% funded. Which means that a huge chunk of the $112k in "benefits" for these workers is actually being used to compensate for pension fund deficits for prior employees. In no actual way are these 'top-up' funds actually a benefit for the new pooper-scooper employees who are technically getting credited with the "benefit" as part of their total compensation.

Among benefits I think only pensions are averaged across all employees in this way. Even health care insurance varies based on which of the insurance options an individual employee picks. And payroll taxes (social security, at least) cap out somewhere in the low 6 figures.

This is 160% though. Something is off.

112k/yr for health insurance seems high. How large is the SF retirement benefit?

As others have pointed out, it's likely the retirement portion is large but won't go to these particular employees when they retire. Instead, it's likely the city pension fund is underfunded for current retirees so extra for every current employee is budgeted to go into the fund to make up for it.

Budgeting rules may also require that they allocate enough for each employee in case they all have families of 4 or larger when in fact many will have only one or two people in their household.

Even though the amount over the salary was called "mandated benefits," it likely also includes non-benefit costs like payroll taxes.

Even so, budgeting over 100% for non-salary costs per-employee is hard for me to get my head around; a bad pension situation seems like the most plausible expanation (or the original reporting [0] was wrong, they didn't show their work).

[0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Bree...

aye - the top line number seems indicative of something else at work. Perhaps the City budgeted the tools/services/equipment needs of these employees on a per employee basis? I could easily imagine a city employee in SF cleaning poop needs a not insubstantial amount of budget for waste disposal, cleaning equipment, hazard insurance etc.

That’s actually more than several engineers I know who work in the bay. What a wild wild city SF is (and not in a good way).

Keep in mind that figure includes health insurance, retirement contributions, payroll taxes, etc. They might only be making $100k per year, which is nice but not enough to ball out in SF

$71k (see https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-poop-patrol-em...)

Yup, looks like even in 2022 their salaries are <$100k: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Sewer%2...

This is a bit misleading on purpose. The city reports the total cost of the role, not the pay.

Many tech roles total cost is more than 1.5x-2x their salaries.

They're not quoting the total cost of the role. They're quoting total compensation.

What tech roles provide defined benefit pension schemes?

I dunno, I get the skilled vs unskilled thing, but I'd take a haircut on pay to not have to walk around looking for poop to pick up...

I dunno, I would rather take the job security instead of the constant threat of downsizing letter from CEO proclaiming what an incredibly difficult decision it has been while planning their next luxury holiday in the Mediterranean.

Fair point, but those jobs are also just one admin change away from someone changing the pay to a more realistic rate of 20 something an hour.

I already do it for free. $200k to be able to hang out outside with a pooper scooper all day sounds like paradise.

This is grift masquerading as public services.

It’s a dirty job, just like any other tech job, where you have to clean up the previous guys mess. Except, in the tech world, the mess-makers make out like bandits, go on to become directors, senior directors, vice presidents, etc. The ability to make messes is highly rewarded.

Relatedly, I run a Twitter bot that tweets every time a poop is reported to the city: https://twitter.com/poopscoopsf

(After many years of running, the bot seems broken. Not sure if I’ll fix it this time.)

That's a tough follow

I mean, you could be picking up human shit instead.

based on the salary I kind of assumed that was part if it... come to think of it Ive technically picked up more human turds than dog turds on my hobbiest-level neighborhood cleanup efforts in the wider bay area... but Ive spent infinitely more time and energy cleaning up garbage and abandoned furniture from encampments... :shrug:

I often describe myself as a digital janitor clearing up poop all day.

Where do i sign up for £170k a year?

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