BART janitor who made $270,000 Caught Spending Hours in a Closet

In November, California County News reported on a custodian employed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit System who raked in over $270,000 in pay and benefits in 2015. The colossal sum—on par with the average salary of a federal court judge—was owed in large part to $162,050 in overtime.

Now, video captured as part of a KTVU investigation has raised questions over just what the janitor has been doing during his long hours on the job. As it turns out, much of his time is spent in a closet.

In order to observe how [the janitor] spent his sometimes 17-hour work day, KTVU requested surveillance video from BART. On it, they saw [the janitor] entering a storage closet twice in one day, once for 54 minutes and again for 90 minutes later in the day. On another day, they observed [the janitor] in the closet for 90 minutes in the afternoon and another 78 minutes in the evening.

The custodian claims he takes meal breaks in the closet, but BART says there’s a separate break room for that. And a typical lunchtime is only 30 minutes.

The investigation also revealed that the custodian failed to clock in or out 16 times in a single year. According to BART, he's just one of 49 janitors who made over $100,000 in 2015.