By Nick Buglione
A December 2004 audit by the Nassau County comptroller ripped the jail administration for granting unauthorized overtime, costing the county $20 million in 2003.
Covering the period from 2002 through April 2004, the audit found that overtime was granted to correction officers without proper verification of the hours worked, and had increased 100 percent in four years. The jail paid out $10.3 million in overtime in 2000, which ballooned to $20 million in 2003, county Comptroller Howard Weitzman said.
What¹s more, 32 correction officers earned more than $50,000 in overtime, including one whose overtime earnings topped out at $118,000, in 2003 alone.
³Everyone agrees that excessive overtime by a few officers at the county correctional facility has been outrageous,² said Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who joined union leaders in announcing the new contract at a press conference on Monday, Aug. 8. ³Today we are fixing that problem. With this agreement, we have achieved what we set out to when we inherited a fiscally corrupt county, proving that smart government can negotiate labor agreements that are both fiscally responsible and fair.²
The contract addresses the policy problems that have resulted in excessive overtime, Suozzi said. The new agreement will put a ceiling on what an individual correction officer can earn, so that the total earned in overtime never exceeds the base pay for the top officer in a given rank.
There will be also be a significant reduction in the overtime rate, which is currently about time-and-three-quarters pay per hour. Under the new contract, the overtime rate will be reduced to time-and-a-half by 2010, which will save the county $17.6 million, Suozzi said. Correction officers will also be limited to no more than 152 hours of overtime in a month.
³This is a great example of how county government and its unions can work together to make positive changes,² said John Duer, president of the Sheriff Officers Association, which represents approximately 1,000 correction officers who work at the Nassau County jail. ³From the very beginning of these negotiations, our objective was to provide the hardworking members of this union a fair and equitable contract that would not increase the financial burden on Nassau¹s taxpayers. We have achieved our goal.²
Correction officers will receive a 20 percent pay increase over the six years of the contract, with a 2.5 percent increase this year and a 3.5 percent increase over each of the next five years.
Signed in 2001 and retroactive to 1998, the union¹s previous seven-year contract expired in December 2004. Negotiations began in the weeks prior to the contract¹s expiration, and the two sides struck a tentative agreement over a week ago, Duer said.
A published report highlighting excessive overtime at the jail, however, forced both sides back to the collective bargaining table, where they worked out the new guidelines. ³Last week¹s news reports of an officer earning over $230,000, with much of it coming from overtime, was outrageous,² Suozzi said. ³Today¹s announcement makes clear two simple facts: This was a contract this administration inherited, and this won¹t happen again.²
Though Weitzman said his office has yet to examine the details of the new contract, he acknowledged that it is definitely a stop in the right direction. ³Overtime at the county jail has been out of control for years,² Weitzman said. ³[The contract] appears that it provides overdue limits.²
Comments about this story? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
