In most offices, if a worker repeatedly made sexual remarks and grabbed young females who were under his authority, he'd probably be terminated in a hurry. But in the case of Aryeh Eller, 46, a former music teacher at a public high school in the Queens section of New York City, the result has been a bounty of nearly $1 million over 13 years -- plus benefits.
The generous protection, which was first reported on by the
New York Post, has been caused by the city's "rubber room" policy. Under this policy, if a teacher is accused of wrongdoing, he or she is kept in limbo status, out of the classroom and sometimes in a holding room, until the investigation is concluded. According to the Post, Eller, is the city's longest serving rubber room teacher. The music teacher was suspended in 1999, a year after he began working full-time and students started complaining about his conduct.
But a hearing officer, who decides whether tenured teachers can be fired, ruled that the city couldn't fire him because he wasn't properly informed of his rights. The Department of Education, determining that Eller was not fit for the classroom, has kept him in a "rubber room."
More: Sign Up For AOL Jobs' Newsletter
During the Department of Education's investigation, Eller reportedly confessed to allegations from students that included the following:
-
Telling a student that "age doesn't matter" after admitting that he had a "crush" on her. He also told her she was "well-developed" and that she would make a "good wife."
-
Turning off the lights during class and then touching a student's shoulders.
-
Complementing a student's "nice a**," after asking her to lift her shirt.
After the hearing officer ruled that Eller couldn't be fired, the Department of Education decides to put him in the rubber room category indefinitely. He reports to an office in Queens to collect his salary, which currently stands at $85,000 a year. (He's collected $943,000 while being in the rubber room category.) He contributes to the school system by answering phones and doing paperwork.
Eller's brother has come to his defense. In speaking to the
Post, Ayton Eller, said that his brother is diagnosed as suffering from bipolar disorder, and that he has a "history of mental issues," but "he's stable now because of the medicine." He also says that his brother is a "genius" and a trained classical guitarrist who performs in local concerts. He says that he's never left the school system for other work because of his two children. (He's divorced from his wife.)
Regardless of their reasons, teachers in the New York school system who have been assigned to the "rubber room" have been known to stick it out until retirement, despite the allegations of misconduct that hang over them.
Of course, some
New York city schoolteachers are more accepting than others. As was reported by AOL Jobs last year, technology teacher Francesco Portelos posted a live stream of his banishment to a "rubber room" after he butted heads with administrators at Intermediate School 49 on Staten Island. (He had accused officials of engaging in "financial misconduct.")
While posting the images of his time there, Portelos held up a sign that read, "I'd rather teach." And speaking to the camera, he noted, "I'm getting paid $75,000 to sit around." (As of two months ago, Portelos was reported to still be in the rubber room, according to the
Vice website.)
- <p>
Should he be convicted on the corruption charges brought against him, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/28/local/la-me-bell-20120829">Robert Rizzo (pictured above) could go down as the king of swindling public sector</a> employees. Back in 2010, the Los Angeles<em> Times</em> reported that Rizzo, the city administrator of Bell, Calif., was the ringleader of a band of eight employees creating unusually large salaries for themselves in that Southern California city of about 35,000 residents. Rizzo himself allegedly received a payday that reached as high as $1.5 million a year, according to the <em>Times</em>. And that was for a work cycle that included 107 vacation and 36 sick days a year.</p>
<p>
The investigation led to the dismissal of all eight of the employees. They reportedly got the money by creating "official looking documents" which they then delivered to city residents to alert them of fines that they owed for trumped-up housing violations. <a href="http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/08/30/fired-bell-calif-official-eric-eggena-sues-for-837-000-in-ba/">The Bell eight</a> are waiting their final day in court.</p>
<p>
</p>
- <p>
The story of <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/janitors_clean_up_zEecMaKxzR8m202QAPiVZP#ixzz26RVMlyp6">highly paid school janitors in New York City</a> has been a recurring topic in Gotham tabloids. "They're mopping up -- and cleaning us out," was how the <em>New York</em> <em>Post</em> put it back in 2010 when it reported on janitors making upward of $140,000 a year.</p>
<p>
How do they do it? For starters, some have through their union been able to negotiate <a href="http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/08/24/janitors-accused-of-stealing-hundreds-of-thousands-from-new-york/">favorable contracts</a> that allow the janitors to collect two salaries for one job. Or they've been able to simply lie on their way to the big paychecks, as Trifon Radef is accused of doing between 2007 and 2010. In addition to his full-time job at Theodore Roosevelt Educational Campus, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/nyregion/06custodian.html">Radef was on the books for being a night custodian</a> at Harry S. Truman High School. In total, Radef is accused of stealing $500,000 from the city school system. After being fingered in a city investigation, he is <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/08/22/39153.htm">awaiting trial under the False Claims Act.</a></p>
- <p>
There are many jobs that inspire such devotion that workers are pleased to put in as much time as possible. You would think the thankless task of <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/sewer_worker_waste_deep_in_ot_cash_8c0x86j6ERs4qyTuyeYhOL#ixzz26RaaoA1O">sewage cleaning</a> wouldn't be one of them. But according to the <em>New York</em> <em>Post</em>, Christopher Carlson (not pictured above) worked last year at a rate of more than 80 hours every week, which comes to 2,109 hours of overtime in addition to his 2,091 hours of regular time. This means he earned $197,119 on a base salary of $81,662. Not bad for the man who was the only city employee to work more than 2,000 hours of overtime last year.</p>
<p>
Why is such a dogged schedule necessary? His workplace, the Owls Head Wastewater Treatment Plant in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn seems to be short-staffed. The facility, which requires coverage by a senior sewage worker 24 hours a day, seven days a week, has a staff of just three people. </p>
- <p>
Working as a lifeguard offers an appealing combination -- it's extremely important work in which you can save lives, while also getting a tan as you punch the clock. But lucrative?</p>
<p>
In Newport Beach, a city in Orange County, Calif., <a href="http://orangepunch.ocregister.com/2011/05/10/lifeguarding-in-oc-is-totally-lucrative-some-make-over-200k/44783/">full-time lifeguards</a> earned six figures, thanks to a combination of base pay, overtime and benefits. Two battalion chiefs on the crew even make more than $200,000 a year, according to a report last year by <em>The Orange County</em> <em>Register</em>. This comes while the city struggles with the highest <a href="http://articles.dailypilot.com/2012-04-03/news/tn-dpt-0404-pensions-20120403_1_pension-liability-pension-costs-pension-fund">pension debt in the county,</a> according to the <em>Daily Pilot</em>, a local newspaper. </p>
<p>
Nevertheless, the salaries are defended by local authorities, including Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, who told the <em>Register</em> that he believes the salaries are "very fair and very reasonable with comparable positions and other cities up and down the coast."</p>
<p>
</p>
- <p>
<a href="http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/news-releases/year-2008/dr-kern-wildenthal-to-retire-after-22-yearsas-ut-southwestern-president.html">C. Kern Wildenthal put in 22 years</a> as president of UT Southwestern Medical Center, and when he retired in 2007, he cited benign reasons, saying that it was the "perfect time for me to turn the reins over to a new leader," according to the university. It was probably much easier to leave knowing that he would hold onto an annual <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2011/07/13/10-Insanely-Overpaid-Public-Employees.aspx?">salary of $841,557</a> for <a href="http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20120711-OPINION-207110333">"philanthropy work,"</a> according to <em>Seacoast Online</em> and the <em>Fiscal</em> Times.</p>
<p>
His official new title was as "assistant to the president for community affairs, but the dream didn't last forever. After an investigation<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/351303-special-investigative-report-regarding.html"> into Kern's travel expenses</a>, Wildenthal's salary was <a href="http://watchdogblog.dallasnews.com/2012/05/utsw-cuts-kern-wildenthals-sal.html/">reduced earlier this year. But don't shed tears for him: It's now $490,000 per year</a>, reports <em>The Dallas Morning News</em>. </p>
<p>
</p>
- <p>
California has been battling an epic budget crisis for years, but for a three-year period it paid one of its prison surgeons a total of nearly a million dollars. That hefty pay was in spite of his having been fired once for alleged incompetence and inability to treat inmates from 2005 to 2011, according to <em>ABC News</em>. Instead, over that time <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/california-prison-doc-patients-earned-777423-year/story?id=14062247">Jeffrey Rohlfing has been reviewing paper medical records</a>, or been on "mailroom" duty in the words of prison doctors, while he collects his salary.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>
Initially, the state wanted to hold back Rohlfing's salary in light of his competency problems. But after he appealed that decision, and won in state courts, California was ordered to pay up. "We want taxpayers to know we had no choice in this," Nancy Kincaid, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/13/local/la-me-prison-doctor-20110713">spokeswoman for California's inmate healthcare</a> told the Los Angeles <em>Times</em>. </p>
- <p>
Being a plumber can be tough work, but for <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/thanks-nycha-inefficiency-plumber-william-naddeo-live-500-000-new-jersey-mansion-article-1.1161091#ixzz26wd6Pqrh">William Naddeo (pictured above), and his fellow staff plumbers</a> for the New York City Housing Authority, the payday was pretty grand. The NYCHA plumbers have a base pay of $86,000. But in Naddeo's case, the final salary was upward of $190,000 in each of the past two years, thanks to overtime, reports New York's <em>Daily News</em>.</p>
<p>
And by all appearances, Naddeo and his fellow plumbers are coming by their overtime honestly. According to Ray Rondino of Plumbers Local 1, "There are not enough plumbers to handle the work.... So the overload has to go into the night." Indeed, the authority is currently responsible for maintaining 178,000 apartments with just 180 plumbers.</p>
<p>
But in spite of their heavy workload, it appears that the plumbers aren't working in the most efficient of workplaces. Apparently there's no system for tracking equipment in NYCHA's 5,200 storerooms. As a result, the plumbers, along with the other NYCHA staffers such as carpenters and plasterers, spend 120,000 hours a year just searching for the materials they need, says the <em>Daily</em> <em>News</em>. </p>
Looking for a job? Click here to get started.
Sign up for our e-mail newsletter so you'll always know what's happening on AOL Jobs.
More From AOL Jobs
Dan Fastenberg has more than a decade of experience working as a journalist. Most recently he was a reporter with TIME Magazine covering politics with analyst Mark Halperin. Previously, he was a writer for the Thomson Reuters news service's Latin America desk. He was also a reporter and associate editor for the Buenos Aires Herald while living in South America. Follow Dan on Twitter. Email Dan at daniel.fastenberg@teamaol.com. Add Dan to your Google+ circles.
more...
179 Comments