If you ever have occasion to spend some time on the beaches, lakes, or public pools in the Los Angeles region, you can relax knowing you are in the hands of hundreds of the highest-paid lifeguards in America.
Yes, Open the Books (OTB) has done it again. A couple of years ago, the Illinois-based non-profit government transparency watchdog made public the outrageous compensation paid to hundreds of L.A. lifeguards. Those revelations generated one of the most widely read investigative reports ever published.
The OTB folks file thousands of public information requests every year at every level of government from the nation's capital down to your local DMV, then either post the spending data they receive or head to the courthouse with a suit seeking to force disclosure to the taxpayers of how their money is being spent in a particular area.
The goal is to "put every dime online, in real time." Or as the group's recently redesigned website puts it: "We follow every dollar. From government salaries to secret contracts, we expose the spending they don't want you to see."
Now, OTB is back with an updated report, and the results are just as shocking, perhaps even more so in view of the ruinous wildfires earlier this year, the more recent anti-ICE riots, and the continuing decline in the quality of life for residents of one of the nation's biggest and bluest sanctuary cities.
Here's what OTB found: Lifeguards working for the county of Los Angeles "enjoy big overtime payouts and generous benefits. The top-paid lifeguard in L.A. County was compensated more than $500,000 in 2024, and over the past 5 years, a single lifeguard was able to pull down $702,000 – in overtime alone!"
And that's just the beginning:
We reported that in 2021, the top-paid lifeguards earned up to $510,283 — back then, we found 98 lifeguards earned at least $200,000 including benefits. Now, out of over 1,500 lifeguards, 134 of them earned at least $200,000 including benefits. Thirty-four of them had $300,000 or more in their compensation package.
But wait! There's more:
The highest paid in 2024 was lifeguard services chief Fernando Boiteux, who was given $523,351 in base pay, "other pay" and benefits. Total compensation was $70.8 million for the 134 lifeguards last year, and includes the following: "base pay, overtime pay, 'other' pay, leave time payouts, health insurance payments, pension contributions, deferred contributions, long-term disability and life insurances, and 'other' benefits."
The average annual compensation for the top 10 lifeguards, according to the publicly available data compiled by OTB, is $409,566. Forty-five of the lifeguards collected between $50,000 and $171,000 during 2024.
Looking at the combined figures for the past five years, OTB found that when base and overtime are combined with other compensation, each of the highest-paid lifeguards got somewhere between $1.4 million and $2.4 million in total compensation for the period covered.
The picture is radically different among the L.A. city lifeguards, where the work is part-time and the highest-paid individual received $35,000.
Just to be clear, neither this author nor OTB questions the courage or importance of stationing highly motivated, skilled lifeguards to keep watch over the surfers, swimmers, and kiddies enjoying their time in the Pacific waters.
As OTB explains:
Ocean lifeguards Max Malamed and Ryan Aronson were given the 2024 Medal of Valor for "performing a difficult and dangerous pier jump into large surf to rescue a distressed patient experiencing a psychiatric crisis," the LA County Fire Department said.
Paramedic Rescue Boat Captain Brian Kari, Paramedic Ocean Lifeguard Specialist Sean Kennedy, and members of the Avalon City Fire Department were given the Distinguished Service Award for helping a young mother who faced life-threatening complications while giving birth on Catalina Island. They stabilized mother and child, who were then airlifted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit on the mainland.
And such heroics aren't just for the people. A couple of the lifeguards rescued a distressed dolphin that had beached itself and would have died had they not gotten it to a marine mammal rescue center.
But guess what: There doesn't appear to be a causal relationship between courage and coin. Aronson received total compensation of $65,000, while Malamed's total compensation was $231,000. It appears courage is an aspect of personal character rather than paychecks.
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