County overtime tops $60K

The county spent $66,993 on overtime through September, according to information presented to the Garland County Quorum Court Monday night.

The county’s new overtime policy took effect in June, compensating employees with time-and-a-half pay for hours earned in excess of the regular workweek instead of paid time off that accrued at a rate of one and a half hours for every hour of overtime.

The county paid $23,337 in August overtime, including $5,334 for the general fund-supported Garland County Sheriff’s Department and $6,307 for the three-eighths cent sales tax-supported detention center facility fund.

The monthly total represented 1.36 percent of the county’s $1,715,275 August payroll, which had three pay periods.

The $10,381 in July overtime represented

0.009 percent of the $1,145,642 monthly payroll. The $19,685 in September overtime was

1.73 percent of the $1,138,354 payroll.

The quorum court directed the county finance department to provide monthly reports on overtime, an expense justices of the peace have said needs to be closely watched.

The $33,949 accrued by the sheriff’s department and detention center account for more than half of the county’s overtime costs. Sheriff Mike McCormick told JPs training, including qualifying for annual firearm certifications, is responsible for much of the overtime.

The sheriff’s department’s $5,334 in August overtime was 1.73 percent of its $308,554 payroll for the month. The detention center’s

$6,307 in overtime represented 1.73 percent of the detention center facility fund’s $363,599 payroll for August.

Law enforcement and detention had

$13,890 in September overtime, which included time-and-a-half holiday pay for patrol and detention deputies who worked on Labor Day. The detention center’s $9,564 in September overtime was 4 percent of its $238,623 monthly payroll.

McCormick told JPs in May that he did not expect patrol deputies to receive more than $2,000 in annual overtime pay. Several

JPs asked if hiring additional personnel instead of using overtime to offset the department’s limited staffing would be more cost-effective.

McCormick said the three deputy positions that could be added to the payroll with funds earmarked for overtime would have a negligible effect on scheduling. The department has about 30 patrol deputy positions budgeted for 2018.

The quorum court appropriated $606,611 in unprojected 2017 revenues in May to pay out more than 10,000 hours of outstanding compensatory time and fund overtime expenses through the end of the year.

The sheriff’s department and the county’s other public safety entities said the new overtime policy gives them greater scheduling flexibility. Paid time off deputies had to use within six months of its accrual often required those filling in for them to work in excess of the department’s regular 43-hour workweek, leading to even larger accruals supervisors had to schedule around in subsequent pay periods.

The new policy also eliminates costly payouts of comp-time accruals to employees who leave or are terminated.