COLUMBUS, Ohio -- From furloughed employees to calls for a tax increase, you may be surprised to learn that the city is spending millions of dollars in overtime -- sometimes as more in overtime than the salary of the actual employee.
NBC 4's Mikaela Hunt investigated what the city paid in overtime in 2008.
Some city department's stood out in the public records request. Of the top ten, six are from the police division and four are from the public utilities department.
In one case, a wastewater employee made more than $90,000 in overtime on top of a $49,000 salary.
Nine others made more in overtime than their actual salary.
In 2008, the city paid out more than $28 million in overtime.
When the city is cutting back or raising fees, the discovery begs the question, wouldn't the city be better off filling those positions with two people instead of one making that much overtime?
According to the department of public utilities, it's not that simple.
"Well, keep in mind. When you hire someone, you pay salary, pay their benefits. We've looked at this over and over and this is the most efficient way of doing it. Because you would be adding more costs by adding another person's salary, benefits," said Rick Tilton, assistant director of the Department of Public Utilities.
Tilton said the severe weather can also impact the overtime for the department, as does the always on-always open nature of their business.
But as the city is tightening its budget belt, what is being done to cut costs?
Tilton said the department has been cutting back to keep water rates down and that the 2009 personnel budget is expected to be smaller than 2008.
"We actually had success on that in 2009 -- one year before projecting but because of cost saving, cut to single digits for 2009," Tilton said.
Below is a searchable database of City of Columbus employees' overtime for 2008. Please search only for a name or department.
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Click here to load this Caspio Bridge DataPage.
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