Denver’s overtime costs in 2005 will be higher than in any of the previous four years, and much of the increase stems from police, fire and sheriff’s issues.
While virtually all city agencies have reduced overtime costs or held them even, overtime spending for police, fire and the sheriff through October of this year is up nearly $5.3 million compared with the same time last year, records show.
Much of the increase is at the Police Department. Police Chief Gerry Whitman, who was struggling with a mass of retirements, received permission from the city’s budget office early this year to keep his patrol cars filled by using overtime.
“We had a large number of vacant positions,” said the city’s budget director, Mel Thompson. “It’s logical when you’re down 100 positions that you will generate some overtime to fill those critical posts.”
The Denver Post analyzed a database of more than 74,000 payroll records to find out how much overtime cost the city from 2001 through this October.
The review found that the police, fire and sheriff’s departments had spent $13.6 million through October on overtime, accounting for more than 60 percent of the $21.7 million in overtime costs for the entire city.
The city’s overtime costs for all of 2004 were $20.5 million.
Safety officials say they’ve kept positions vacant to pay for overtime, and that it often costs more to hire additional workers to cut overtime. They also stress that some big overtime costs, such as airport police, don’t come from the city’s general fund and therefore aren’t paid by the city’s taxpayers.
But the jump in overtime costs has prompted concern among some city officials, including City Auditor Dennis Gallagher, who reduced his office’s overtime budget by more than 65 percent since 2001.
“Without taking an in-depth look at any particular agency, the auditor believes it would certainly seem that the city is now at a point where it’s passed the cost effectiveness of paying overtime as opposed to hiring new employees,” said Gallagher spokesman Denis Bercke feldt.
Annually, about 45 percent of the city’s 11,000 workers receive some overtime. But a core of about 3,500 city workers get overtime year after year. A handful make so much overtime they double their salary.
Many workers, mostly police officers at Denver International Airport and city paramedics, are doing so well that their overtime earnings are pushing their annual compensation beyond what their supervisors are paid.
“I think there are a number of employees at this point who expect that overtime and would be very upset if they started losing that overtime,” Berckefeldt said.
“That’s not the purpose of overtime,” he said. “… It’s supposed to be a stopgap to deal with unforeseen circumstances.”
City agencies spent a total of $101.3 million on overtime from 2001 through October of this year. That tally doesn’t include a hidden cost. All that overtime figures into retirement earnings, too. While police and firefighter pensions are based on regular salaries, all other city workers’ pensions are based on their total pay, including overtime.
The city worker who claimed the most in overtime pay for 2001 through October was paramedic Rebecca Sproul, who declined to comment. She was paid $209,256 in overtime for those five years, while her annual salary is $55,860.
The salary and overtime of paramedics are reimbursed to the city by the Denver Health Authority, which annually handles more than 66,000 calls for emergency service. Part of paramedic overtime costs come from staffing Colorado Rockies and Denver Broncos games, plus other games and parades.
In all, 600 special events pay the city for such paramedic service as well as traffic officers and off-duty police security.
Another lucrative overtime area is the airport, where 32 officers were paid more than $30,000 each in overtime last year.
The city expects the overtime tab for police work at the airport to total about $2.8 million by the end of this year. All that spending is reimbursed by the airport.
Lt. Donald Maddock, a police supervisor at the airport, said he schedules 301 four-hour overtime shifts a week. Much of the work involves directing traffic. He said the overtime work is staffed by 90 airport officers and about 120 officers from elsewhere in the Police Department.
The work is so popular that about 130 officers are on a waiting list to get their chance at airport overtime, Maddock said.
“You have to stand on your feet up to eight hours if you’re working a double shift,” said Maddock, who through October of this year supplemented his regular $84,636 annual salary with $34,778 in airport overtime. “It’s on concrete. It’s hard on your knees and back.”
City Council President Rosemary Rodriguez recently urged the airport to consider saving money by hiring retired officers at a reduced rate to do the work.
Maddock said he doesn’t think there are enough retired officers for the job.
The airport police make up about 30 percent of the city’s police overtime, which totaled $10.1 million so far this year – compared with $6.6 million at this point last year.
New hires should cause police overtime to level off by the middle of next year, Thompson, the city budget director, said.
Overtime costs also are up about $800,000 compared with last year at the Sheriff Department, which is struggling with jail overcrowding.
Sheriff’s Division Chief William Lovingier said about $2 million has been spent on overtime so far this year.
The Fire Department’s overtime budget is up to $2.5 million through October, exceeding the $1.6 million spent at that point last year. Up to $300,000 of that will be reimbursed by the federal government to repay work to assist in Hurricane Rita and Katrina relief efforts.
Computer-assisted reporting editor Jeffrey A. Roberts contributed to this report.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-820-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
