Supervisors to Keep a Closer Watch on Growing Overtime Costs

Confronted by an “alarming” $62-million cost overrun in projected overtime expenditures, the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday stepped up its oversight of the practice, which already consumes $173 million in an annual budget stretched as tightly as a drumhead.

The board unanimously adopted a motion by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky that will require county department heads to submit reports every three months on exactly how much they are spending on overtime and why. Department heads also will be required to show what steps they are taking to curtail overtime costs, including increased management controls and expedited hiring of new staff.

“When overtime is not done in a back room, but is discussed with a spotlight on it, there is less of a likelihood that it will be abused,” Yaroslavsky said in an interview after the vote. His motion was approved without discussion.

The county’s 38 departments have steadily increased their use of overtime in recent years, though services have not expanded and staffing levels have remained constant. Such increases have prompted concern among the supervisors and county auditors, as well as the state auditor, who has monitored the county’s finances since it nearly went bankrupt in the summer of 1995.

This year, Los Angeles County’s overtime costs will reach a new record high.

Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen reported in a Jan. 14 memo that projected overtime expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30 will exceed $235 million, topping the record $214 million spent on overtime last year and the $180 million spent the year before.

Janssen singled out several departments--probation, children and family services, the sheriff and the Fire Department--for greatly exceeding their overtime budgets.

Yaroslavsky and Janssen both said overtime is necessary in some cases, particularly since the county has had a de facto hiring freeze in effect for five years.

As a result, many departments have relied heavily on overtime to keep staffing levels up, particularly those departments required by the state to provide a certain level of services--such as the sheriff’s, probation and children and family services agencies.

But, Yaroslavsky and Janssen said, those and other departments seem to have allowed overtime to become an “institutionalized” perk that is frequently abused by employees who like to earn extra pay at time-and-a-half overtime rates.

“Overtime is viewed by some departments almost as an entitlement, which it is not,” Yaroslavsky said.

Janssen said that despite the added overtime expenses, departments all have stayed within their budgets and won’t need any more money from the county general fund.

But that raises a question of whether the departments are using money budgeted for other services and personnel costs to pay for the overtime, county officials acknowledged.

“It’s hard to know” whether that is happening, Yaroslavsky said. “The dramatic growth in overtime . . . is alarming. We just don’t have enough of a handle on what’s going on.”

The Sheriff’s Department alone will spend $33 million more than it budgeted for overtime, despite pledges by Sheriff Sherman Block to control excessive spending.

The Probation Department is projected to spend more than $17 million in excess of what it budgeted for overtime; the Fire Department’s expenditures are expected to go more than $1.8 million beyond budget.

Yaroslavsky was particularly critical of the Department of Children and Family Services, which is expected to exceed its overtime budget by almost $7 million--more than $2 million of that at the MacLaren Children’s Center.

Children and Family Services Director Peter Digre attributed much of the overtime use to the increased demand for supervision of children with serious emotional problems.

But Yaroslavsky--echoing the concerns of children’s social workers--said too much overtime cuts down on productivity and makes employees tired, overwhelmed and dispirited.

“Overtime has to be supplementary to your basic service delivery budget, not critical to it,” he said.