06-10-2008, 02:48 AM
Stop paying double overtime on holidays, panel urges police
By DON JORDAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 09, 2008
DELRAY BEACH — The city's police department should eliminate its practice of regularly paying double overtime to union employees using holiday time to bolster their overtime hours, a city budget task force report urges.
Nearly 100 employees, from sergeants to low-ranking officers, have benefited from the extra pay, says the report, which is to be presented to the city commission tonight. Double overtime payouts cost the city $127,991 last year.
The problem hinges on an employee's options when working a holiday. The first option is to take double the regular pay. The second is to take the regular pay for the hours worked and defer the holiday to a designated day off in the future, essentially "floating" the holiday to a different date.
Police employees have been deferring their holidays to an overtime day and factoring both the eight hours of work and the eight hours of holiday pay as overtime hours, according to the task force report.
The calculation gives an employee 24 hours of pay for eight hours of work.
In one example, a sergeant earned $6,875 for working 87 hours of double overtime, or about $79 an hour.
City Finance Director Joseph Safford said Monday that the task force's findings baffled him, especially since he addressed the issue more than a decade ago.
"Some personnel in the operating departments are misinterpreting application of the various personnel policies and union contracts regarding the payment for work on a holiday," Safford wrote in an October 1994 memo to city department leaders.
A provision in the police union contract allows employees "who are required to work a holiday, to defer that 'holiday' to another day in order to actually take time off," Safford wrote. "These shift personnel may not defer these 'holidays' to days where they are assigned to work."
Employees are allowed to defer a holiday for six months "in order to actually take time off work," according to the police union contract with the city.
The reason for allowing floating holidays was to give employees the option of rearranging what days they had off, Safford said.
"I was not even aware that it was still continuing until we started doing this research," he said Monday.
It isn't clear whether the police department is violating its contract or taking advantage of a vague provision. The task force found that the police department was the only city department using double overtime.
Police Chief Joseph Schroeder and police spokesman Jeff Messer could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
City Manager David Harden said he was aware of the payments and thought they were not good for the city but added they have been "standard practice" since he came to Delray Beach in 1990.
However, the budget crunch could mean that many of the standard practices will have to change or end, Harden said.
"Everything is on the table and we may come down to the point where we make some adjustments in these sorts of things or we lay people off," Harden said.
"It would have to be renegotiated at the bargaining table."
The city and the police union must negotiate a new contract by the end of September.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/south/epaper/2008/06/09/0609delraybudget.html
By DON JORDAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 09, 2008
DELRAY BEACH — The city's police department should eliminate its practice of regularly paying double overtime to union employees using holiday time to bolster their overtime hours, a city budget task force report urges.
Nearly 100 employees, from sergeants to low-ranking officers, have benefited from the extra pay, says the report, which is to be presented to the city commission tonight. Double overtime payouts cost the city $127,991 last year.
The problem hinges on an employee's options when working a holiday. The first option is to take double the regular pay. The second is to take the regular pay for the hours worked and defer the holiday to a designated day off in the future, essentially "floating" the holiday to a different date.
Police employees have been deferring their holidays to an overtime day and factoring both the eight hours of work and the eight hours of holiday pay as overtime hours, according to the task force report.
The calculation gives an employee 24 hours of pay for eight hours of work.
In one example, a sergeant earned $6,875 for working 87 hours of double overtime, or about $79 an hour.
City Finance Director Joseph Safford said Monday that the task force's findings baffled him, especially since he addressed the issue more than a decade ago.
"Some personnel in the operating departments are misinterpreting application of the various personnel policies and union contracts regarding the payment for work on a holiday," Safford wrote in an October 1994 memo to city department leaders.
A provision in the police union contract allows employees "who are required to work a holiday, to defer that 'holiday' to another day in order to actually take time off," Safford wrote. "These shift personnel may not defer these 'holidays' to days where they are assigned to work."
Employees are allowed to defer a holiday for six months "in order to actually take time off work," according to the police union contract with the city.
The reason for allowing floating holidays was to give employees the option of rearranging what days they had off, Safford said.
"I was not even aware that it was still continuing until we started doing this research," he said Monday.
It isn't clear whether the police department is violating its contract or taking advantage of a vague provision. The task force found that the police department was the only city department using double overtime.
Police Chief Joseph Schroeder and police spokesman Jeff Messer could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
City Manager David Harden said he was aware of the payments and thought they were not good for the city but added they have been "standard practice" since he came to Delray Beach in 1990.
However, the budget crunch could mean that many of the standard practices will have to change or end, Harden said.
"Everything is on the table and we may come down to the point where we make some adjustments in these sorts of things or we lay people off," Harden said.
"It would have to be renegotiated at the bargaining table."
The city and the police union must negotiate a new contract by the end of September.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/south/epaper/2008/06/09/0609delraybudget.html