Jackson Free Press

City Council members took a detour from the agenda this morning to discuss the millions of dollars the city spends on overtime pay each year.

Council members expressed concern about the amount the city is paying for employees working overtime. The Clarion-Ledger reported earlier this week that the city spent about $6 million in overtime payments in the past year, up from $4.7 million for fiscal year 2010, and editorialized that overtime pay is out of hand.

Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. said his office is working on policies to better guide overtime usage, but that some overtime work is unavoidable, especially for police, if someone does not show up for duty, or if a water line breaks at night. Broken water lines have plagued the city in recent years.

Ward 1 Councilman Quentin Whitwell said he thought the article was misleading and confusing, since people are only paid overtime if they work overtime. The article did say at least one person logged hours when he was not working, however, and Whitwell acknowledged the need for checks and balances to make sure claims for overtime payments are legitimate.

Council President Frank Bluntson asked the mayor about the person who had claimed overtime, but whose supervisor said he was not actually working.

Johnson replied that they should also talk about the supervisor changing the employee's work record. "Maybe you need to talk to some other people and get the other side of the story," he said.

Bluntson said he was willing to talk about both sides of the story. "You want to talk about both sides of the river? We'll talk about both sides of the river," he said.

Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon said no one is arguing that employees do not have a right to overtime pay for overtime work. "I think right now ... it does seem to be a bit out of control," she said.

Usually, when employees work more than full time, employers must pay time and a half for any extra hours worked. Johnson said that in some cases, employees make double pay for overtime hours. "We do have people working overtime who volunteer ... to work overtime (to make some extra money)," he said.

Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes suggested that if the city is spending so much on overtime, it should hire more people and put the overtime money toward creating jobs.

Stokes, who will be moving to the Hinds County Board of Supervisors in January, laughed about the back and forth between the mayor and Bluntson. "You know, I'm going to miss this," he said.

Previous Commentsshow

Supervision of city workers is the problem. Administrators or department heads need to direct the supervisors to appear at the work sites from time to time...that is actually part of their job description. If workers are simply trusted they would not need supervisors. The overtime situation reminds me of the gasoline card abuse a couple of years ago. Public Works managers failed to walk the route of a contracted job near the river which cost the city additional money for the main water line extension. Extra money is approved by the council called a 'change order' for that specific contract. Its like overtime for city contractors and that hurts the city too. I have seen city attorneys and department heads strategizing over lunch on matters I wished I could hear more of their conversation.

Aeroscout

Dec 14 2011