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Damage to City property, invoice received

oiprocs

oiprocs

Diamond Member
I caused some damage to City property.

I received an invoice, itemizing the individuals who worked to perform the repair, and their hourly rate.

My concern is that when I check out the City's current pay scale online, it's about half what they're charging me.

Examples:

1 Maintenance Supervisor for 0.5 hours @ $73.78/hr (max pay for this position is $39.38/hr)

1 Office Support Specialist for 1.0 hr @ $52.56/hour (max pay for this position is $25.20/hr)


I've got the pay scale sheets printed out for each individual and I'm planning to go tomorrow and argue that I shouldn't be paying almost double their hourly rate. I can't imagine any real justification for this...unless I'm expected to believe that the City can choose to profit on a repair, which sucks. But then I ask, why aren't the profit margins consistent for every individual?

Help...
 
As a recruiter for a contracting agency, those rates are consistent with the markup you'd see for contractors. They include, on top of the hourly rate, taxes and benefits paid to the employees. The "profit" likely goes towards administrative, legal, and other fees including those who decide never to pay the city back.
 
what people 'get paid' and what they 'bill for' on invoices is not the same
that is about right

so either pay it or go to small claims/magistrates court and see if the judge will knock it down some
 
What people get paid and the billable rate for their hours are two very different things. The billable rate includes their pay, their benefits, the cost of the office that they work in, any equipment they use, support staff that don't directly bill their time, overhead that they have to do that can't get billed against a specific job, etc.

Double their pay is actually quite reasonable to cover all that other stuff. For reference, my billable rate is about 3x what I get paid.
 
I knocked over a street sign. The officer couldn't stop laughing. He didn't know a Hyundai could generate enough force to do that at 30 MPH. He almost felt bad because it certainly was a dimly lit quickly-approaching curve, but he said my lights were too weak and I should have taken care of that. Piece of crap 1995 Accent. When my student loans are gone, I'm getting a real car.

So, a $30-$50 fix is now $400.

I know private companies mark up costs but I figured since this is public, they wouldn't try to profit, or at least profit by that much.

Actual cost using their pay scale is $262, so I suppose IronWing is right. $140 is probably worth ridding myself of the hassle.
 
They're not going to charge out city employees at their working rate - that's not how it works. They need to add a reasonable markup to cover overhead and admin costs. Those charge-out rates proportionate to the pay rates are almost exactly what my charge-out is in relation to my pay rate (as an accountant).
 
oiprocs said:
I knocked over a street sign. The officer couldn't stop laughing. He didn't know a Hyundai could generate enough force to do that at 30 MPH.
Click to expand...

He didn't know that a 2 tonne car travelling at nearly 50km/h could knock over a street sign? I guess you don't need much education to become a cop, but still...
 
FoBoT said:
what people 'get paid' and what they 'bill for' on invoices is not the same
that is about right

so either pay it or go to small claims/magistrates court and see if the judge will knock it down some
Click to expand...

Yeah. I know a guy who does on-site IT work for his company. He makes $30/hr but his company charges $90/hr for his work.
 
Leros said:
Yeah. I know a guy who does on-site IT work for his company. He makes $30/hr but his company charges $90/hr for his work.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that his company pays an office lease, receptionists/secretaries, electricity, insurance, capital costs, taxes etc. Again this is in line with my pay rate vs charge-out rate.
 
Mike Gayner said:
Keep in mind that his company pays an office lease, receptionists/secretaries, electricity, insurance, capital costs, taxes etc. Again this is in line with my pay rate vs charge-out rate.
Click to expand...

Yeah. When you consider all the factors, it makes sense.
 
oiprocs said:
I knocked over a street sign. The officer couldn't stop laughing. He didn't know a Hyundai could generate enough force to do that at 30 MPH. He almost felt bad because it certainly was a dimly lit quickly-approaching curve, but he said my lights were too weak and I should have taken care of that. Piece of crap 1995 Accent. When my student loans are gone, I'm getting a real car.

So, a $30-$50 fix is now $400.

I know private companies mark up costs but I figured since this is public, they wouldn't try to profit, or at least profit by that much.

Actual cost using their pay scale is $262, so I suppose IronWing is right. $140 is probably worth ridding myself of the hassle.
Click to expand...
Freedom isn't free. 😵
 
oiprocs said:
I caused some damage to City property.

I received an invoice, itemizing the individuals who worked to perform the repair, and their hourly rate.

My concern is that when I check out the City's current pay scale online, it's about half what they're charging me.

Examples:

1 Maintenance Supervisor for 0.5 hours @ $73.78/hr (max pay for this position is $39.38/hr)

1 Office Support Specialist for 1.0 hr @ $52.56/hour (max pay for this position is $25.20/hr)


I've got the pay scale sheets printed out for each individual and I'm planning to go tomorrow and argue that I shouldn't be paying almost double their hourly rate. I can't imagine any real justification for this...unless I'm expected to believe that the City can choose to profit on a repair, which sucks. But then I ask, why aren't the profit margins consistent for every individual?

Help...
Click to expand...
Real reason: The city, or any company for that matter, pays roughly double what the employee gets in wages in all. 50% of this money, again equal to what the employee gets paid, goes to the State and Federal Government and employee benefits.
 
Last edited:
Imagine if the roles were reversed and city property damaged your car, you'd get laughed in your face if you tried to charge them double your hourly rate for lost work time.
 
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