Suffolk sets high for overtime income; Nassau hovers near its 2021 top mark

Aug. 14, 2023 | Vera Chinese, Candice Ferrette and Anastasia Valeeva | Newsday

WHAT TO KNOW

• County government workers in Nassau and Suffolk counties earned record high overtime pay in 2022, with hundreds racking up more than $100,000 in overtime each and eight making more than $200,000.

• Two hundred twenty employees in both counties - 131 in Suffolk and 89 in Nassau - took home more than $100,000 in overtime. Most were law enforcement officers.

• Officials blame low staffing levels and starting pay, high turnover rates and a pandemic-era hiring freeze.

County government workers in Nassau and Suffolk earned record overtime pay in 2022, with hundreds racking up more than $100,000 in overtime each and eight making more than $200,000, county data shows.

Most were law enforcement officers working in the counties’ police forces and sheriff’s departments. Topping the list was a veteran Suffolk police officer who earned nearly $242,000 in overtime last year, according to 2022 payroll data Newsday obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Law.

Two hundred twenty employees in both counties - 131 in Suffolk and 89 in Nassau - took home more than $100,000 in overtime, according to the data.

The additional pay boosted Suffolk’s overall spending to $137 million in 2022, up %5 from 2021 when it was $130 million.

The data details compensation for 12,359 county workers in Suffolk and 15,236 in Nassau.

The employee taking home the most overtime pay in both counties in 2022 was officer Gardy Wool, a 17-year veteran of the Suffolk County police force, who made $241,717 in overtime, the data shows.

None of the employees named in this story responded to requests for comment.

Tim Hoefer, president and CEO of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany, said overtime data is often “an indicator of how well-run any government organization is.”

Hoefer said most local governments build in to their annual budgets a line item for overtime as “unanticipated expenses” such as responding to natural disasters or, more recently, a pandemic. But it also could signal lapses in staffing or mismanagement if it exceeds budget regularly.

That only a handful of public employees are taking home the largest overtime checks indicates a problem, he said.

“There are few scenarios in which I think it’s appropriate for an individual employee to make $100,000 in overtime,” Hoefer said. “But there are no circumstances in which it is appropriate for any given person to earn $200,000 in overtime in a given year.”

Police top list of OT earners

Law enforcement salaries tend to drive county spending, accounting for about half of each county’s payroll costs, and the employees also typically top the list of overtime pay.

Seven others who joined Wool in crossing the $200,000 threshold included three patrol officers and a sheriff’s deputy in Suffolk, and two correction officers and a correction sergeant in Nassau.

All but three of the 131 top overtime earners in 2022.

Suffolk first crossed the $200,000 threshold in 2015 with Police Officer Nancy Neumann took home $273,879, according to Newsday analysis of county overtime pay during the last decade.

In Nassau, 2022 marked the first time a county employee made more than $200,000 in overtime pay. Three members of the correction department - officers Michael R. O’Malley and Michele Aquista and Sgt. Patrick G. McCaffrey - crossed the threshold.

Of the 89 top overtime earners in Nassau, 66 work in the correction department, 18 are police, four are members of the fire commission and one is in social services.

“The thing people should be concerned about with regards to overtime is whether the pay these officers receive will pad their pensions, or if the officers are too tired to do their jobs,” said Larry Levy, executive director of the Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University. “And it’s not clear this is the case.”

Impact of extra work hours

A May study from New York City’s Department of Investigation found that the more hours an NYPD officer worked, the greater the chance of a “negative police outcome” such as an injury, car crash or misconduct complaints. The study, which relied on city data, interviews and publicly available findings on fatigue, said further research was needed for a cost/benefit analysis of using overtime to meet the city’s public safety needs.

Dennis Kenney, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who co-wrote a 1996 study on the prevalence and consequences of police fatigue, said law enforcement officers are more exhausted than those in almost any other occupation, largely because many departments rely on overtime to meet staffing needs.

Kenny said excessive overtime can cause tired officers to be easily agitated, which can fray community relations. Law enforcement officials are often called on to make rapid decisions, and fatigue can impact their ability to do so, he said.

“In an era where police/community interaction and collaboration is important, fatigue can do a lot of long-term damage,” Kenney said.

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