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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="133285a1erlcgo.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Arial" ><B>ProTeeGolf - Classic Woods and Forged Blades</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ProTeeGolf Classic Woods and Forged Bla"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Me:"><U>About Me:</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Golf Clubs for Sale"><U>Golf Clubs for Sale</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ELECTRONICS"><U>ELECTRONICS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Headcovers"><U>Headcovers</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Various other Items for sale"><U>Various other Items for sale</U></A>   |   <B>Contact Us</B>   |   <A HREF="id58.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marine Parts for Sale"><U>Marine Parts for Sale</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id86.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="NIssan"><U>NIssan</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Automotive"><U>Automotive</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id79.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Miscellaneous"><U>Miscellaneous</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id80.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Boats For Sale"><U>Boats For Sale</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="CARS"><U>CARS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id83.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Phones"><U>Phones</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id85.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Repairs"><U>Repairs</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id87.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fishing Reels"><U>Fishing Reels</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id88.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Furniture"><U>Furniture</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id89.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Why NJ Sucks "><U>Why NJ Sucks </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id90.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dining"><U>Dining</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id91.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ford Excursion"><U>Ford Excursion</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="132d2c00dkelyh.png"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div> Questions or comments e mail me at  <A HREF="mailto:mark@proteegolf.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:mark@proteegolf.com"><U>mark@proteegolf.com</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div>  <form action="http://csbmail.globalscape.com/cgi-bin/csbmail/csbmail.pl" method="POST" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"><input type="hidden" name="tlx_SortOrder" value="FirstName,LastName,Email,Company,Address1,Address2,City,State,Zip,Phone,Fax,MailingList"><input type="hidden" name="tlx_FormIndex" value="2"><input type="hidden" name="tlx_OKMessage" value="Thank you for your request for information."><input type="hidden" name="tlx_SendMode" value="1"><input type="hidden" name="tlx_Subject" value="A request form was submitted"><input type="hidden" name="tlx_EmailTo" value="mark@proteegolf.com"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" border="0" align="center"> <tr> <td align="left">First Name:<br> <input type="text" name="FirstName" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Last Name:<br> <input type="text" name="LastName" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Email:<br> <input type="text" name="Email" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Company:<br> <input type="text" name="Company" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Address Line 1:<br> <input type="text" name="Address1" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Address Line 2:<br> <input type="text" name="Address2" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">City:<br> <input type="text" name="City" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">State:<br> <input type="text" name="State" size="30" maxlength="100"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Zip:<br> <input type="text" name="Zip" size="10" maxlength="10"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Phone Number:<br> <input type="text" name="Phone" size="14" maxlength="14"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left">Fax Number:<br> <input type="text" name="Fax" size="14" maxlength="14"></td> </tr> <tr> <td> <input type="checkbox" name="MailingList" value="yes"> Add me to your mailing list</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right"><input type="reset"> <input type="submit" value="Send" name="tlx_send"></td> </tr> </table> </form>  </div> <bR> <div> Ralph Berlangieri made $102,700 last year. He's not an executive or a lawyer or an engineer. He's a Port Authority gardener who cares for trees, shrubs and flowers at Newark Airport.</div> <div> "I have a nephew who has a college degree, and he doesn't make that kind of money," said Berlangieri, who has worked for the bistate agency since 1975. "He told me he wants to get a job at the Port Authority."</div> <div> Berlangieri's base pay last year was $63,700. He added $39,000, mostly through overtime.</div> <div> "If they're going to offer it to me, I'm not going to turn it down," he said.</div> <div> Berlangieri's hefty take-home haul is hardly an aberration. A Daily News analysis of Port Authority payroll records also found two cops who made more than one-quarter million dollars each last year, an electrician who pulled in $124,000 and a garage attendant whose total pay was $67,300.</div> <div> The records also show there were 19 gardeners on the books last year making an average of $76,000, including overtime and shift differentials.</div> <div> The agency has more than 6,200 full-time employees, who averaged $71,900 each in base pay last year. Records show that with all other forms of compensation added, such as overtime and differentials, the average annual pay jumped to $90,200 per employee.</div> <div> Some other annual average earnings by position, including overtime and other pay:</div> <div> Police - $116,700</div> <div> Electricians - $96,000</div> <div> Plumbers - $82,900</div> <div> Garage attendants - $62,600</div> <div> Toll collectors - $54,300</div> <div> Port Authority Executive Director Anthony Shorris admitted that a gardener making $102,700 "sounds crazy" and said he has begun a review of compensation levels at the authority.</div> <div> "What really concerns me is the issue of overtime," said Shorris, who was appointed to the top job in January.</div> <div> Last year, records show, the PA paid out $72.6 million in overtime.</div> <div> Shorris said he wants to be sure that overtime is being effectively managed by supervisors and that "individuals aren't gaming the system to drive up pensions."</div> <div> Top-paid individuals included police Sgt. John Rienzie ($270,200); Officer Frank Gato ($255,900); electrician John Manbretti ($124,000); plumber John Santoro ($119,000); toll collector Clarence Tanksley ($86,700) and garage attendant Reginald Bowers ($67,300).</div> <div> The records show that Rienzie's base salary was $100,800, increased by $130,500 in overtime and $38,900 in other earnings, including differentials. Gato's base salary was only $80,500, according to the records.</div> <div> Port Authority records also show two "salad makers" on the payroll; they earned more than $40,000 each. A PA spokesman said the job title does not mean these two only make salads, but are general cafeteria workers.</div> <div> In total, the Port Authority payroll topped $560 million last year, with more than 35% of all full-time employees topping the $100,000 mark.</div> <div> The agency is much more generous than local and state government employers. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average full-time government worker in the New York area made $56,000 in base pay last year.</div> <div> "In general, I think this is because they are subject to less accountability and oversight," said E.J. McMahon, a fiscal policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.</div> <div> Among the best-compensated group at the bistate agency are the more than 1,600 cops who make up the Port Authority Police Department.</div> <div> Rienzie was the highest-paid employee in the entire authority last year, even topping then-Executive Director Kenneth Ringler, who made $268,400. Rienzie retired Jan. 27.</div> <div> And Rienzie, who did not respond to an interview request, was far from the only cop who pulled in more than $200,000 last year - a total of 50 surpassed that milestone.</div> <div> While most of those earning top dollar have been on the job for at least a decade, more than 200 officers hired in 2002 made more than $100,000 last year, including overtime.</div> <div> Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, defended the compensation levels.</div> <div> "We're being underpaid," Danese said. "It should be more."</div> <div> Danese also claimed that PA management would rather pay the overtime, which came in at $43 million last year for police alone, than hire additional officers.</div> <div> Port Authority generosity doesn't stop with paychecks. Employees are part of the New York State pension system, which counts overtime when determining pensions.</div> <div> According to pension records obtained by The News detailing the top 100 earners in the system, 42 come from the Port Authority. Those 42 retirees each receive between $126,200 and $183,500 annually in pension checks.</div> <div> And the payments the Port Authority makes to the pension system to cover its employees have exploded. In 2002, the authority sent New York $10.8 million. Last year, that figure was $59.4million.</div> <div> "When I go to retire," said the gardener Berlangieri, "I'll have a pretty decent pension."</div> <div> <U>blesser@nydailynews.com</U></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Port Authority officials fail to curb overtime pay</div> <div> by Ron Marsico/The Star-Ledger </div> <div> Saturday April 26, 2008, 11:30 PM</div> <div> Embarrassed by years of perennially high police overtime costs, Port Authority officials called in an international management consultant two years ago.</div> <div> The agency paid KPMG $435,000 to evaluate its staffing practices and make suggestions to get things under control. Overtime had jumped 12 percent to $42.9 million over the previous year, and KPMG found plenty of problems -- no cap on overtime, difficulties reassigning staff to open posts, "archaic" record keeping and lenient sick time and disciplinary policies.</div> <div> The results a year later?</div> <div>  <A NAME="more"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>Overtime soared even higher in 2007, hitting $48.9 million -- a 14 percent jump over those already elevated 2006 numbers and the second-highest dollar amount in agency history, behind 2001.</div> <div> Some members of the department continued to work staggering hours -- a top 10 list includes several officers averaging more than 70 hours a week every week of the year.</div> <div> Port Authority officials say they implemented some of the reforms suggested by KPMG but found others impossible given the agency's existing contract with the police union that runs through January 2010.</div> <div> "The study provided us with an outside professional opinion that confirms we're contractually handcuffed," said Marc La Vorgna, a Port Authority spokesman. "Significant portions of the contract absolutely need to be revised when the renewal is negotiated."</div> <div> A KPMG spokesman declined comment, citing confidentiality issues.</div> <div> The ballooning overtime costs are more than a budget concern, police experts say, arguing officers who work so many hours can become fatigued and prone to making mistakes.</div> <div> Overall, the roughly 1,600-member force worked nearly 838,000 hours of overtime -- more than 500 hours per officer on average.</div> <div> Some officers carried more of the load than others. Port Authority Police Officer Morris Cofield, a 14-year veteran stationed mostly at John F. Kennedy International Airport, logged on average a bit more than 80 hours each and every week in 2007.</div> <div> That workaholic pace brought a bonanza: His $82,909 base pay skyrocketed with $153,461 in overtime and then extra stipends led to a grand total of $263,468.</div> <div> Cofield, 45, had lots of company behind him on the overtime train -- nine other Port Authority officers, for example, averaged between 62 and 77 hours every week last year.</div> <div> "That's excessive and is bound at some point to undermine that officer's ability to perform -- out of fatigue, if for no other reason," said Wayne Fisher, director of the Police Institute at Rutgers University in Newark. "Over the period of a year, there has to be a negative effect."</div> <div> Police Supt. Samuel Plumeri said the overtime is critical to filling shifts in the post-9/11 War Against Terrorism, particularly at the bistate agency's "terrorist-rich targets" like key airport, bridge, tunnel, rail and port facilities.</div> <div> "It's not Mayberry. It's the Port Authority," said Plumeri, noting he makes no apologies about putting security first at an agency that suffered two devastating attacks on its property at the World Trade Center. "I'm not trying to be cavalier about money ... but I'm more concerned about taking care of those (security) issues."</div> <div> Since late 2006, Plumeri said there have been publicized threats to agency facilities -- like ones to blow up both the PATH tunnel between Jersey City and Lower Manhattan and the fuel farm near John F. Kennedy International Airport -- and others the public never heard about that have driven up overtime.</div> <div> "We are an intelligence-driven police department," he said.</div> <div> Plumeri said the department implemented recommendations from KPMG where possible, such as improved procedures for assigning overtime, but is hamstrung by the existing contract and ongoing need to fill shifts. Nevertheless, he said, the agency is concerned about overworked officers and takes steps to ensure they are ready for duty.</div> <div> Asked in particular about Officer Cofield's hours, Plumeri defended the officer and said he met him recently at JFK.</div> <div> "He's as physically fit as you can get -- always on post," said Plumeri, who also said Cofield's commanding officer had spoken highly of him. </div> <div> "Our executive officers evaluate these people before they work ... seeing if they're mentally able and physically able to work," said Plumeri of officers who log the most overtime. "I think we'd acknowledge the number (of hours) is high, but he's fulfilling a need. He's willing to work and able to work. We had identified posts that we needed to fill and we did." </div> <div> Critics, though, say the physical toll is too high. </div> <div> Washington State University Criminal Justice Professor Bryan Vila, who wrote a book "Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue," said too much time spent on duty results in sharp reductions in officers' vigilance, coordination and alertness.</div> <div> "We depend on them to use their judgment judiciously," said Vila, a former law-enforcement officer himself. "The idea of putting them on the street impaired and armed -- it's dumb. ... This is a fundamental risk management and human capital issue."</div> <div> Gus Danese, the department's Police Benevolent Association president, blamed the overtime issue on management, insisting, for example, that they failed to hire enough officers and neglected to train others to fill specialty shifts like K-9 bomb dog units.</div> <div> "A lot of cops don't like to work those hours, but they (P.A. officials) force them to work those hours," said Danese, noting that working numerous shifts takes a health toll. "It does catch up to you. I'm not going to lie to you."</div> <div> Plumeri, however, said overtime is voluntary and the agency has worked hard in recent years to beef up its police force and now has an all-time high number of officers.</div> <div> Overtime pay, meanwhile, is lucrative to Port Authority police officers both in the short- and long-term. Unlike police in New Jersey, the agency's officers are able to use their overtime to increase their pensions, since those checks are based on the three consecutive highest-paid years under the New York State Pension System.</div> <div> Cofield and other members of the department's 2007 list of top overtime earners did not respond to requests for individual interviews made via e-mail to the officers and verbal requests to the Port Authority's public information office.</div> <div> Andrew Scott III, former Boca Raton police chief and president of a police consulting firm in Florida called AJS Consulting Inc., said localities and government agencies have one glaring reason for being concerned about such overtime numbers -- legal liability.</div> <div> "When you get beyond 60 hours, fatigue becomes cumulative," said Scott. "The fatigue factor then comes into affecting reaction time, decision-making, judgment calls ... (a) lawsuit follows." </div> <bR> <div> Perfect storm of ethical taint</div> <div> May 6, 2008</div> <div> The awarding of a contract to a politically connected construction group — the highest bidder for a job to construct a rail terminal at the Meadowlands complex — combines all the sickening elements of New Jersey's corrupt political culture: pay-to-play, conflict of interest, secrecy and cronyism. It makes a mockery of New Jersey's ethics reform efforts, which continue to fall far short. Consider:</div> <div> The $18.6 million contract was awarded by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority to a construction group that made $99,650 in political donations last year and received $109.5 million in public contracts.</div> <div> Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, a major advocate of rail service to the Meadowlands, is the chief operating officer of one of the three companies in the group.</div> <div> Two lower-bidding companies were deemed "deficient" by an outside counsel, but the documents detailing why the bids were unacceptable are being withheld from the public because of "attorney-client privilege."</div> <div> Two of the three companies in the group, including Sarlo's, that received the contract failed to report all their political contributions. Sarlo's employer signed off as having made no political contributions since 2004, but state Election Law Enforcement Commission records suggest the company and all groups related to it should have reported $41,600 in 2007 alone. Failure to properly report political contributions is punishable by up to 18 months in prison and fines up to $10,000.</div> <div> Is it any wonder why citizen cynicism and New Jersey's reputation for corruption continue to grow? There is no end to these kinds of stories.</div> <div> The state Treasury Department says it is reviewing the rail terminal contract. The ELEC discrepancies alone should stop it from being executed. And the documents deeming the other companies "deficient" should be released for public scrutiny immediately.</div> <div> Sarlo, who is the Senate's deputy majority leader and double-dips as mayor of Wood-Ridge, says there is nothing unethical about a lawmaker lobbying for a project that will directly benefit his employer. "I don't have any ownership, so there's no conflict," he said. But he is listed in the bid documents not only as the company's chief operating officer but as a principal. If his dual political and professional roles don't constitute a conflict under state law, the law needs to be changed.</div> <div> Sarlo and the rail terminal project are another example of why real estate development and holding public office are a bad blend. And of just how much further ethics reform has to go in New Jersey. Gov. Corzine has promised for three years to make ethics reform a top priority. If this episode doesn't inspire him to finally act, we can't imagine what will.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>