A Times investigation: LAFD union head made $540,000 in a year, with huge overtime payouts

[Zorro]

Last edited Wed Apr 30, 2025, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

• LAFD union leaders have padded their own paychecks with overtime, even as they complained that the LAFD did not have enough money to keep the city safe.

• Union President Freddy Escobar more than doubled his base salary with overtime payouts in 2022, earning a total of more than $424,000 from the city in pay and benefits. He collected an additional $115,962 stipend from the union that year.

• In response to The Times’ inquiries, the LAFD said it has launched a “comprehensive review and overhaul” of its procedures for tracking the hours and reimbursement of those on leave for the union.

Long before the devastating fire in Pacific Palisades, leaders of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s labor union complained that the agency did not have enough money to keep the city safe.

“It’s a damn shame, and excuse my language, that it took this incident, the Pacific Palisades, to finally bring attention to our grossly understaffed, underfunded Fire Department,” Freddy Escobar, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, said at a city Fire Commission meeting in February.

Union leaders, along with top LAFD commanders, said budget cuts had resulted in a backlog of engines needing repairs and not enough mechanics to fix them. But even as they denounced those reductions, the union leaders secured four years of pay raises for the city’s 3,300 firefighters through negotiations with Mayor Karen Bass. And firefighters often make much more than their base pay, with about 30% of the LAFD’s payroll costs going to overtime.

That includes Escobar and other top union officers, who have for years been padding their paychecks with overtime while also collecting a five- to six-figure union stipend, a Times investigation found.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-04-30/lafd-union-head-massive-amounts-of-overtime

This is why many people don't care for unions -- and public service unions in particular.

[Scrivener7]

1. This has nothing to do with the union. This has to do with LAFD corruption.

[Ponietz]

2. Grifters to the left of me grifters to the right...

[Jacson6]

3. If they worked the hours then they deserve the pay.

Being a FF is not a 8 hour a day job. Right wing talking points as the owner of the LA Times has proven before that he supports.

[Grins]

4. Happens all across the country.

Mostly major cities; the myth of the courageous, underpaid civil servant.

Story a couple years ago about the pensions of 20+ police officers retiring around the same time in one of the outer boroughs of NYC.

Not one was under $100,000. Pension!

And that pension would go up if active duty officers got pay raises.

And their average age was mid to late 40’s.

So they could retire from the police, start collecting a pension, then go out and work in the public sector for another 20+ years while contributing to Social Security, IRAs and 401Ks - then collect on those in addition to their pension at age 65.

What does your pension pay you?