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Liang Zhao Zhang’s job is to clean up BART stations in downtown San Francisco and clean up he does: He swept in $162,000 in overtime pay last year, records show.
Call Zhang the super janitor, an extraordinarily high earner in a field where the beloved school custodian rarely brings home more than*$50,000 a year.*
BART janitor’s whopping 2,485 hours of OT worth $162,000
BART janitor’s $162K in overtime has social media buzzing
Zhang grossed $235,000 in 2015, four times*more than*his base*pay as a janitor.*Benefits brought his total cost of employment at the rail agency to more than*$270,000. And records show this isn’t the first time he raked in six-figure compensation at BART. Zhang received a combined $682,000 in pay and benefits over the last three years.
“Where do I sign up?” joked Lionel Hsu, a BART rider on Tuesday.
But Hsu, who commutes by BART from his home in Contra Costa County to Oakland, said he doesn’t fault workers who*take advantage of OT shifts*to make*more money. “It’s BART’s fault too,” he said. “It’s poor management, it’s poor financial planning.”
The eye-popping figures are featured in a new report from the Las Vegas based nonprofit*Transparent California, which released records Tuesday showing the pay of special district workers across the state.
“It would be great if all janitors were paid $200,000,” said Transparent California Research Director Robert Fellner. “But I seriously doubt BART riders — who must pay for this excess — are ever afforded that opportunity.”
The group’s report*comes a week before voters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties and San Francisco vote on a ballot measure that if passed would allow BART to borrow $3.5 billion by selling bonds to begin a long-awaited system overhaul.
BART salary data that this news organization obtained shows Zhang was one of 35 workers at the agency whose overtime pay exceeded their base salaries in 2016.
But don’t blame Zhang, said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost.
He*works “almost every day of the year cleaning our stations,”*she said.
“He is signing up for time that is also available to others — if he doesn’t take them, someone else will. Station cleanliness is a priority for us.”
An opponent of the ballot measure, Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, said Zhang’s overtime was outrageous but not a surprise. Overtime at BART remains rampant, he said. “There are so many examples like this.”
Acknowledging that BART needs the makeover, Glazer said he’s urging voters to reject the bond question. “We can’t reward bad behavior.”
BART board President Tom Radulovich and Vice President Gail Murray did not return phone calls Tuesday.
Glazer said he didn’t blame Zhang for working as much as he could. “It goes so far beyond this guy.”
Compensation data collected by this news organization shows that many other janitors at public agencies across the region are paid far less than Zhang.
Of 474 janitors who worked at the Oakland, San Jose and Antioch school districts in 2015, only two exceeded $100,000 in salary and benefits combined, the news organization found. The most overtime paid to a*custodian was $22,000.
However, a maintenance worker at the Port of Oakland also topped $200,000 in pay and benefits last year, Transparent California’s data showed.
Trost did not respond to requests to make Zhang available for an interview. He could not be reached.
A spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union, Cecille Isidro described his work as “backbreaking.” It “involves cleaning up after the hundreds of thousands of riders that rely on BART to get to and from work every day.”
But another BART rider said it was just too much.
“I am stunned,” said Debra Flinker, of Walnut Creek, as she waited for a train to arrive in Oakland on Tuesday, after hearing about the overtime pay. “Actually, I’m appalled.”
Katy Murphy Katy Murphy is based in Sacramento and covers state government for The Mercury News and East Bay Times, a beat she took on in January. Before that, she was the news organization's higher education reporter, writing about UC, CSU, community colleges and private colleges. Long ago, she covered Oakland schools and other K-12 education issues.
Follow Katy Murphy @katymurphy
Thomas Peele Investigative reporter Thomas Peele has worked at newspapers, including Newsday, for 33 years in California and East Coast states. He focuses on government, public officials, public records and data, often speaking about transparency laws publicly.
Follow Thomas Peele Thomaspeele
good point, his sensitivity around janitor pay explains a lot
