There have been layoffs, cutbacks and talk of furloughs, but apparently there's been no stemming the flow of overtime hours in Merced County government.
For the past three years, county employees have earned more than $11.2 million in overtime payments and 121,000 hours of compensation time for working extra hours.
Those numbers are based on a Sun-Star examination of county payroll records. (Compensation time is used as vacation, or if the employee doesn't take time off work, is paid out as cash.)
In the 2009-10 fiscal year, which brought 71 job cuts and the specter of another shoestring budget in 2010-11, county employees had earned more than $3.2 million in overtime and nearly 35,000 comp hours through May.
Some of the payouts are negligible: 0.37 compensation hours for a child support specialist or $5.67 in overtime pay to an office assistant.
Others are fascinating:
$52,342.13 to a corrections officer who worked more than 1,400 hours overtime.
701 hours -- or nearly 90 eight-hour days of overtime with a payday of $13,726.45 for the Spring Fair groundskeeper.
Three employees in the Department of Public Works built up a combined 802 hours in overtime, $50,335.84 in overtime earnings and 275 comp time hours among them. One of the employees has since retired. Nine public works employees were laid off in April.
"The two can't be really equated," said County Executive Officer Larry Combs. "Overtime is allocated and used, as well as comp time, based on needs of a department when situations have arisen. Whether it's the sheriff's deputy who has to stay over to testify in court that morning or it's the groundskeeper who has to work at night to open up a building, stay for an event and close up the building afterwards. Overtime is specific to the needs for that department on that day. Sometimes it's predictable and it's in the budget. Sometimes it's not predictable."
All told, 87 county employees earned more than $10,000 in overtime through May, all but 20 of them from the sheriff's department; 277 county workers logged more than 80 hours -- or two weeks -- of overtime through May.
County general purpose revenues began skyrocketing in 2004, reaching a peak during the 2008-09 fiscal year. By the 2009-10 year revenue had fallen to 2005-06 levels. This coming budget is expected to fall even lower.
The number of total county employees has also dropped, from 2,332 in 2008-09 to 2,035 proposed for 2010-11, suggesting that a heavier burden is being placed on remaining employees.
During this time, overtime payments decreased slightly to $3.2 million in 2009-10 (with one month left in the fiscal year) from $3.9 million in 2008-09.
Earlier this month, supervisors approved cuts for the 2010-11 budget that eliminated 23 vacant positions and eight employees' jobs.
The county will budget $2.9 million for overtime in 2010-11, Combs said Thursday.
"We are looking at all costs in the county and trying to reduce costs," Combs said. "We are looking at overtime, but we are also looking at mileage, use of vehicles, office supplies. We are looking across the board at how to reduce costs at the county."
Reporter Danielle E. Gaines can be reached at (209) 385-2477 or dgaines@mercedsun-star.com.
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