Smithtown workforce, payroll expanded in 2014

Smithtown Town Hall on Dec. 8, 2015. Credit: Ed Betz
Smithtown’s municipal workforce expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2014, to 1,314 employees, a Newsday analysis of payroll data for Long Island towns and cities shows.
The increase came from the addition of 42 part-time employees that year, hired mostly to work in parks and child-care programs, and in code enforcement, said town Comptroller Don Musgnug. The number of full-time employees fell by five in 2014, he said.
Part-time employees represented 63.5 percent of Smithtown’s workforce and full-time employees 36.5 percent.
Musgnug said the number of both full-time and part-time employees has been falling in 2015 as the town tries to control expenses. The staff reduction has come through attrition and unfilled positions, he said.
In 2014, the town’s payroll rose to $36,486,322 from $35,656,180. The 2.3 percent increase was below the 3.5 percent increase Islandwide.
Planning director Frank DeRubeis had the highest pay among Smithtown employees that year. He retired in August 2014, and his $166,264 gross pay included vacation and sick-time payouts, Musgnug said.
Russell Barnett, the director of environmental protection, had the top pay of non-retirees, with $153,671.
The town’s overtime expenses rose to 4.4 percent from 3.36 percent of payroll. The 2014 proportion is just below the Islandwide average of 4.83 percent. Smithtown spent more than $1.6 million on overtime in 2014 with 43 employees making at least $10,000 in overtime.
The three leading overtime recipients were all highway general supervisors. Peter Nelson had the most overtime, $28,016, which was on top of a base salary of $98,470. Three other highway employees were in the top 10 in overtime.
Musgnug said the overall increase in overtime in 2014 — and the tens of thousands of dollars in overtime for highway employees — was due largely to major snowstorms. Highway workers are responsible for clearing town streets of snow, he said.
HOW IT WAS DONE
A team of 11 Newsday reporters has gathered 2014 payroll data from Long Island’s 13 towns and two cities under New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Those statistics have information that has been has been added to payroll data for the previous three years, from 2011 to 2013.
To research payroll data in your town or city, go to Newsday’s interactive database at newsday.com/payrolls.
THE SERIES
Thursday: Oyster Bay and Smithtown
Friday: North Hempstead and Islip
Monday: Brookhaven and Long Beach
Tuesday: Southampton and East Hampton
Wednesday: Riverhead, Southold and Shelter Island
Cops: Day care worker intoxicated at job ... Back-to-back snowstorms eye LI ... DOJ drops charges against Adams ... LI Works: Doughnuts
Cops: Day care worker intoxicated at job ... Back-to-back snowstorms eye LI ... DOJ drops charges against Adams ... LI Works: Doughnuts