Overtime for New York state employees is on pace to hit an all-time high in hours and pay, according to an analysis by the state comptroller”™s office.
In the first six months of 2014, state employees clocked in 7.8 million hours and $316 million worth of overtime, according to an analysis released last week by Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Overtime hours were up 7.6 percent from the same period last year, accounting for $22 million more spent than during the same period in 2013.
“Our state agencies need to examine their practices, get to the root of what is driving high overtime and better manage these costs,” DiNapoli said.
The current pace would set a new record, with $640 million in overtime for the year surpassing 2013”™s record of $611 million, which was a nearly 16 percent increase from 2012. DiNapoli said salary increases contributed to a higher cost-per-hour for labor, but he said overtime hours increased in several agencies. Four agencies, in particular, accounted for 97.6 percent of overtime increases and 63.2 percent of all overtime hours worked in the first half of 2014.
The Department of Corrections spent $79.7 million in the first six months of the year, up 9 percent from last year. The Office of Mental Health”™s $51.2 million was a 14 percent increase from the same period in 2013. The Office of People with Developmental Disabilities increased its overtime spending 10 percent, clocking in $67 million worth of extra costs from January through June.
The Department of Taxation and Finance spent a comparatively small $4.5 in overtime in the first half of the year, but that total represented a whopping 125 percent increase over the first six months of 2013. DiNapoli said part of the overtime costs in that department arose from “problematic monitoring and processing of paper income tax returns.”
