DOH backs members in PEF Division 317
Health inspectors mobilize, fight for pay upgrade
By DEBORAH A. MILES
Grabbing the bull by the horns is what a group of health inspectors are doing to get a pay upgrade.
According to Chris Romano, a senior sanitarian at the state Office of Health Systems Management in Suffolk, the upgrade is 20 years overdue. But members in PEF Division 317 mobilized and filed the appropriate paperwork with the state Department of Civil Service
(DCS).
A major accomplishment was persuading the state Health Department (DOH) to support a civil service study of the appropriate salary grades for employees in sanitarian titles.
After several meetings with DOH personnel and submitting mounds of documentation, Romano said DOH made the recommendation for the DCS study.
“It’s taken two years to have management consider advocating for us,” he said.
PEF provided a civil service study from the 1980s that recommended an upgrade for sanitarians, but was never implemented.
“Their own study showed we were underpaid way back when,” Romano said.
“Now, we’re losing people to counties and cities because those salaries have gone up, while the state is stagnant.”
Retention problems
“Recruitment and retention is the factor that DOH considered,” said PEF Vice President Joe Fox, PEF’s labor-management chair at DOH.
He said more than two dozen sanitarians from throughout the state took a stand by filing a request for an upgrade. Less than 100 sanitarians are on the state payroll.
“Our members really advocated for this,” Fox said. “The only salary differential and upgrade requests that will be approved by DCS and the state Division of Budget are those proposed by state agencies for titles in which they have a significant recruitment and retention problem.”
Many different hats
Romano said the title “sanitarian” encompasses a lot of different sub-specialties. For example, he helps architects and engineers who design new medical facilities understand and comply with building and fire safety codes. He also conducts fire, food and biomedical equipment safety inspections and ensures that medical and non-medical waste is disposed of properly at existing medical facilities throughout Suffolk, Nassau and Queens.
Upstate, some sanitarians inspect restaurants, summer camps, private and public water systems and public bathing facilities.
“We do a lot of contract work for the federal government such as environmental health compliance and fire-safety compliance inspections for nursing homes, hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers,” he said.
Other sanitarians investigate outbreaks of food-borne illness and other communicable diseases.
“Sanitarian is an umbrella title. The civil service examination covers all the different specialties — the gamut of environmental health,” he said.
That’s part of the reason members want an upgrade. Romano said most of the sanitarians are currently a grade 18. They are hoping senior sanitarians will be upgraded to 22 and principal sanitarians to grade 25.
Still under review
“The classification and compensation analyst handling this issue indicated it is still under active review,” said Thomas Cetrino, PEF director of civil service research.
“Civil Service has already reclassified approximately 10 employees in sanitarian titles to titles with higher salary grades. They are studying what the appropriate salary grade should be for the remaining employees in sanatarian titles,” Cetrino said.
A world of difference
Romano has worked as a senior sanitarian for DOH for the past five years, but also worked as an inspector for the Department of Agriculture and Markets for seven years.
“There’s a world of difference,” he said. “We have higher educational requirements and broader responsibilities. We should not be paid at the same level. We’re very responsible at what we do, because people’s lives are in our hands.
“We should be paid accordingly,” he said. “We’ve made progress. We’re moving forward slowly. Now, it’s up to the people at Civil Service.”
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