October 19, 2010

Montgomery County crossing guard job pays $40 per hour

If you want to make at least $40 an hour, Montgomery County has a job for you: helping students cross the street. And you can work as little as one hour a day — 30 minutes in the morning and another half-hour after school. The county's 177 crossing guards are costing taxpayers $4.6 million this year — or about $26,000 each when benefits are included — amid drastic budget cuts to public safety departments and planned layoffs for about 100 firefighters, The Washington Examiner has learned.

The price driver: Crossing guards receive the same benefits packages as full-time employees, which means the county spends more on perks than wages for them. Once considered the best-kept secret among a workforce of 30,000, the position has become one of the county's most popular, particularly among those seeking health care coverage for their families. The arrangement has been in place for more than a decade, and the wait list for the job is now a few hundred deep, police say. SOURCE: Washington Examiner

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