Long Beach City manager targets overtime spending

City Manager Jack Schnirman called on the city’s various department heads, union leaders and commissioners on Monday to put a halt to overtime spending as he attempts to implement strict cost controls and the administration seeks to declare a fiscal crisis.

Schnirman, who said last week that eight departments have already exceeded their budgeted overtime for the fiscal year by 40 percent, or a total of $544,000, added that there has been “zero accountability” and no consistent policies on managing overtime.

In a memo he issued on Monday, Schnirman wrote that in 2011, overtime cost the city $2.3 million, and that given the state of the economy, those costs are “simply unaffordable.”

“The City of Long Beach must discourage the use of overtime except when extra hours are required by emergency situations or are unavoidable,” he wrote. “It is the responsibility of both the City Manager’s office and our department heads to manage overtime in a way that will ensure overtime use is kept to a minimum and that costs are justified. This policy applies to all city departments and agencies.”

Schnirman said that overtime will be approved only when deemed necessary by department heads and with prior approval by him. Additionally, department heads are now required to fill out overtime request forms that include the hourly overtime rate and the total cost. Requests made after overtime work has been completed, Schnirman wrote in the memo, will be in violation of the new policy, except in an emergency.

Among other initiatives put in place to curtail spending is a hiring freeze, Schnirman said, as well as the close tracking of purchasing orders. Just days into his new job, Schnirman said that he had discovered insufficient spending controls, unbudgeted expenses and overestimated revenues, among other problems.