Sheriff’s payroll changes considered

Changes in Garland County Sheriff’s Department payroll policy advanced last month would halve the time period the department uses to measure overtime and reduce the paid time off public safety personnel receive for working overtime and holidays.

The Garland County Quorum Court will consider the changes Monday. They received a do-pass recommendation from the quorum court’s Human Resources Committee last month.

The partial overtime exemption for law enforcement personnel under the Fair Labor Standards Act allows agencies to enact a

seven-to-28-day range for the purposes of calculating overtime. The sheriff’s department uses the 28-day, 171-hour window.

Any hours worked during that period that exceed the 171-hour threshold are considered overtime hours. The department does this despite being on the county’s two-week pay cycle. The HR Committee advanced a proposal that would reduce the overtime threshold to 86 hours worked over 14 days.

The county awards comp time instead of paying an overtime premium, giving employees paid time off equal to hours worked in excess of the regular workweek. Sheriff Mike McCormick told the HR committee the 28day window makes it difficult for supervisors to keep patrol and detention deputies’ hours

under the threshold, leading to large accruals of comp time that have to be paid out when an employee quits or is terminated.

McCormick told The Sentinel-Record the accrual payouts consume funds that could otherwise pay for more deputies.

Per the county’s employee handbook, all comp time over the 480-hour cap for public safety personnel had to be used by the end of last year. Some employees accrued more comp time than they could use and lost it at the end of the year, leading to the quorum court’s Finance Committee advancing an ordinance last week that appropriates $17,137 to pay county employees for the lost time.

Payouts to sheriff’s department and detention center employees accounted for $15,052 of the appropriation. All county employees now have to use comp time within six months of its accumulation.

“It’s very hard to go 28 days and watch somebody’s time,” Chief Deputy of Enforcement Jason Lawrence told the HR Committee. “By going to a two-week period, we can adjust their schedule easier so they don’t accrue all that comp time and put a lot more work on the supervisors.

“The last pay period, our department had 486 hours of comp time, forcing employees to take that many hours off. This allows us to get those hours down and better integrate with the county’s payroll system.”

County Attorney Ralph Ohm told the committee he had been a proponent of the 28-day overtime period, but was willing to see if the narrower window would be more conducive to limiting comp time.

“I’ve been for 171,” Ohm said. “I thought it would give the sheriff’s office more flexibility to burn that time, but what I’m learning now based upon this administration, it actually makes it more difficult to keep up with with the way our payroll system works. I think we should give them a chance to try it.

“Let’s go back in six months and see if (comp time) has gone down or gone up. If it’s gone up, we can go back to the 171.”

The quorum court will also consider reducing the benefit the department’s 156 public safety employees receive for working on the 12 county-recognized holidays, which include employee birthdays, from 12 hours per holiday to eight.

The 96 hours of holiday time would put the department’s policy on par with other county offices.

It would be accrued at a rate of 3.692 hours per pay period beginning on the first pay period of April and will reset to zero the following April. The department said cutting the annual holiday benefit from 144 to 96 hours will reduce holiday accruals and reduce paid days off.

Last year under the 144-hour cap, the department said it had 19,584 hours of holiday accruals. It projects that the 96-hour cap will lower annual holiday accruals to 13,056 hours, creating a savings of $91,065 when the difference of hours is multiplied by the $13.95-per-hour wage for an entry level detention deputy.

The new policy continues to award incentive pay to employees who work on holidays, but the incentive would only be paid to employees working a full shift. A patrol deputy would have to work a 12-hour shift to receive the time-and-a-half incentive, and a dispatcher would have to work eight hours. The incentive wouldn’t be applied to hours worked in excess of a full shift.