November 08, 2004

Extra pay adds up over time

By Brendan Scott
Times Herald-Record

Goshen – It adds up: When two deputies drive 12 hours to fetch a witness from Attica.

When a correction officer lingers for a full second shift just to prepare breakfast in the jail cafeteria. When a deputy idles outside the jail, waiting for a daily lockdown to end so he can deliver his prisoners.

It's overtime. And you get the bill – more than $2 million worth at the Orange County Sheriff's Office in 2003.

Thanks to high turnover, the unpredictable nature of police work and, more recently, military leaves and security details, controlling overtime has proven a nagging problem for the sheriff's office. Add a new jail requiring more staff and you have a recipe for a 40 percent increase in overtime costs since 1999.

Prompted by lawmakers' questions, a frugal county executive's office and new leadership, the sheriff's office has finally begun examining how the office racks up overtime hours at such a pace.

The result? A realization that the 400-employee office – one of Orange County's oldest institutions – is rife with cultural quirks and inefficiencies that waste tens of thousands of taxpayers' dollars each year.

"Overtime's a real bull here," Undersheriff Kenneth T. Jones said. "And everybody's trying to corral it."

Example: Rain prevents a group of inmate trustees from mowing the lawn around the jail.

In the past, the correction officer assigned to watch over them might just stand by, waiting for the skies to clear. Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, another officer is working a second shift to fill a vacancy.

Today, officials say, the first officer would be re-assigned and the one collecting overtime would be sent home.

Noticing such waste has compelled Sheriff Carl DuBois to alter the way the office performs some of its most fundamental tasks. Instead of driving hours upstate to pick up a prisoner, the office has the state bus them to a closer facility.

Instead of sending two deputies to the North Country to retrieve a fugitive, it lets the state police's warrant squad do it. Instead of posting two correction officers bedside at Westchester Medical Center, they pay to keep a sick inmate in the hospital's secure wing.

The payoff as been a large decline in overtime hours and a slight decline in the money the office spends on them.

By this time last year, the office had paid its deputies $817,579 for overtime. Now, overtime costs are down 19 percent to $685,760, despite a new contract that gave deputies a 3 percent raise this year.

However, in that same period of time, overtime expenses for jail correction officers have risen $152,512 to $925,852 – or 16 percent – a fact Jones attributes to several officers serving in Iraq and other staffing shortages.

"You can always cut some more, but they've done a good job of it," said James O'Donnell, the ex-Metropolitan Transportation Authority police chief, who's now the county's efficiency czar. "It's something that we can control and it's important that we keep a day-to-day watch on it."

O'Donnell and Jones argue a 24-hour operation will always require some overtime.

That's especially true of the sheriff's office, which is spread thin each summer as it helps patrol various festivals, fairs and parades. One such event, the Times Herald-Record's Star-Spangled Spectacular, cost $22,000 in overtime.

But the office also has expanded its role in recent years, which some lawmakers believe has exacerbated the overtime problem.

A boat patrol on the Hudson River and new a security detail at Crestview Lake in New Windsor cost some $14,000 in overtime this summer.

"What bothers me is when departments underestimate costs in order to justify their projects," said Legislator Jeffrey Berkman, D-Middletown. "That's clearly what happened with the boat patrol and Crestview Lake."

Sheriff dominates list of county's top overtime earners
January to July 2004

Larry Catletti* Corrections sergeant $22,129
Ivan Harris Deputy sheriff $13,592
Kenneth D'Anci Heavy equipment operator $12,617
Florence Price Deputy sheriff $12,581
Louis Cascino Jr. Highway superintendent $11,535
Lee Rywalt Corrections sergeant $11,470
William Sutherland Corrections sergeant $11,067
Joseph Kastner Deputy sheriff $11,060
Frank Rzeckowski Jr. Deputy sheriff $10,210
Robert Garnham Public safety dispatcher $10,200

Source: Orange County Department of Personnel. Sheriff's office personnel are in bold.

*Catletti is the sole sheriff's office employee certified to train incoming correction officers, requiring him to work added hours.