Va. County Official's Pay for School Traffic Guard Job Criticized

Some Hanover County residents are criticizing a county supervisor's $41.25 hourly pay for his part-time job as a school traffic guard.

“It's ridiculous, and somebody should have been fired for it a long time ago,” community activist Betty “BJ” Ostergren said of Supervisor Elton J. Wade's pay.

Joseph Pierro of Hanover said he's been looking into the matter and is struggling to get straight answers from school officials.

Wade told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he works at two elementary schools. His contract pays him for four hours a day at each school, but he only works about two hours at each location.

Wade said he's not getting special treatment. He said a policy implemented years ago guaranteed part-time employees, including traffic guards and bus drivers, four hours pay, even though some worked less. He said it was a way for the school division to give the employees better pay for jobs that required little time on the clock.

“Some of these buses don't drive two hours a day,” he said. “Some of these buses, you've got 35-, 40-minute runs, once in the morning, once in the evening. So, they're getting paid four hours and they drive less than two.”

Wade said he knows of other Hanover County school employees working at two schools who were given arrangements similar to his -- eight hours of pay for closer to four hours of work.

“I don't want to cheat anybody. I've tried to be honest with my dealings with the county, and whatever the county wants to do, I'm willing to do it,” Wade said.