NBC 4 Investigates State Overtime

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- At a time when nearly one in ten Ohioans is unemployed, the State of Ohio continues to pay out millions of dollars in overtime to its employees.

NBC 4 examined overtime payouts to tens of thousands of state workers and found 424 state employees each collected more than $20,000 in overtime in 2008 on top of their normal salaries.

In total, the State of Ohio spent more than $124 million on employee overtime in 2008.

NBC 4's Patrick Preston investigated what's being done to cut down on the costly overtime.

NBC 4 examined overtime records for more than 65,000 state government employees and found 28 workers took home more than $50,000 in overtime in 2008.

The top ten overtime earners combined to collect more than $1 million in overtime, including three doctors who were paid more than $131,000 each -- just in overtime.

Others more than doubled their salaries with overtime and the examples of eye-opening overtime payouts can be found throughout state government.

"We are, by law, supposed to protect the governor of the State of Ohio and other dignitaries that come in," said Ohio State Patrol Lt. Tony Bradshaw.

Six troopers assigned to executive protection combined to collect $248,809 in overtime.

A sergeant on the executive protection team earned $47,723 in overtime, while a lieutenant took $65,651 -- just in overtime.

"Last year was a presidential year, so with the elections and all the dignitaries coming into the state and going out of the state, it does tax our executive protection unit more. This year it will be down," Bradshaw said.

The biggest group of overtime earners belongs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

NBC 4 discovered one in seven corrections officers earned more than $10,000 in overtime in 2008.

There were 152 corrections officers who accumulated more than $20,000 in overtime, including four people who took home more than $40,000 in overtime.

"We're an agency that has to be there all the time. We never get to close down, never get a day off," said Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

The state's 7,648 corrections officers combined for $45.1 million in overtime in 2008.

So, would hiring more people save some of that $45 million? Collins said no.

"I don't think it would be a wise move on our part to hire staff that would be standing around waiting on overtime," Collins said.

One could question whether new hires would be "standing around," but Collins said that much of the overtime is unpredictable -- the result of overseeing 51,000 inmates and reacting to employee sickness. Collins could not give any assurances that 2009 will be any better.

"I think it will get better. I won't say that it's getting better yet to a great degree," said Ron Sylvester, spokesman for the Department of Administrative Services.

Sylvester said state overtime decreased by $2 million overall in 2008 and that later this year, the department will begin publishing an overtime scorecard, rating each agency on how they control overtime.

"So what we're going to try to do is shine some more light on this issue as it goes on through the year," Sylvester said.

Below are two searchable databases of state employees' overtime totals for 2008. Be sure to search both databases, as they contain different information.

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