Port Authority employee earns more than $166,000 in overtime pay

Eric Pfeiffer
·Reporter

Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) Sgt. Edwin Rivera earned more than $166,000 last year in overtime pay, more than double his base salary.

The New York Post reports that Rivera, 43, earned more overtime pay than any other employee of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority last year. And he already makes a top-level salary, earning a $107,911 salary to supervise other policemen on New York's PATH train line.

"He's on track to earn more than $280,000 in 2012," one anonymous Port Authority official told the Post.

The shocking overtime report comes after a report last year revealed that the Port Authority budget would be handled by outside consulting firms aiming to reduce expenses.

In January 2012, Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye announced that the agency plans to eliminate bonuses and other benefits for nonunion employees, which is expected to save $41 million over 18 months, according to the Associated Press.

To put Rivera's salary in context, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo earns a salary of $179,000. The Post pointed out a few other ironically comparable salaries, including that of a Senior NASA rocket scientist assigned to the New York area ($155,000) and the pay for a New York State Supreme Court justice ($160,000). While they all technically are paid a higher salary than Rivera, their actual pay doesn't come close to his when all the overtime wages are factored in.

And it's far from the only lucrative year in overtime pay that Rivera has earned. According to government-transparency site SeeThroughNY, he earned more than $200,000 each year for the last three years, including a high of $259,304 in 2010.