SOME MONTGOMERY EMPLOYEES ARE CASHING IN ON OVERTIME (2024)

Gregory L. Windham, a traffic management technician, boosted his base pay of about $47,000 with nearly $21,000 in overtime.

Bowers, Maryn and Windham are among hundreds of Montgomery County employees who made thousands of dollars in overtime last year. More than 150 county workers collected more than $10,000 each in extra pay.

A Washington Post computer analysis of the county's payroll -- not including schools and court employees -- showed that about 950 county workers boosted their pay by at least 10 percent by working overtime in 1995.

The overwhelming majority of people at the top of that list are fire-rescue workers and police officers. Yet there were also traffic technicians, corrections officers, bus drivers and sheriff's staff members who worked hundreds of hours of overtime last year.

Taken together, the police department and the Fire and Rescue Services Department account for about two-thirds of the overtime paid in the county last year. The majority of the remaining overtime went to workers of the Department of Public Works and Transportation.

In all, Montgomery spent about $11 million on overtime for its 7,100 employees during fiscal 1995, boosting its $113 million payroll by 10 percent.

In many cases, officials said, overtime was driven up by vacant positions that have gone unfilled because of fiscal belt-tightening. Montgomery County reduced its payroll by more than 400 full-time positions from 1991 to 1995, but during that same period, the amount it spent on overtime -- with some fluctuations -- increased by $2 million a year.

The county is not unusual in its spending on overtime. Fairfax, for example, spent $17 million on overtime for its 8,600 county and courthouse workers in 1995. The bulk of that was also for police and fire.

In Montgomery, department heads said that assigning an employee to work overtime is often cheaper than hiring and training additional workers and giving them benefits. And limiting overtime also can have negative effects, such as those experienced in the District, where cuts in police overtime have been blamed for low morale and drops in performance.

"A firefighter on overtime does not have to be trained from scratch; you do not have to pay extra workman's comp or other benefits," said Jon C. Grover, director of the Fire and Rescue Services Department. "It's a fairly good way to manage if it isn't abused."

But Duncan (D) said in an interview that he is concerned about employees at or near the top of the overtime list, even though he believes Montgomery's total spending on overtime is not out of the ordinary. The county executive said he felt "shock alarms" when he saw a list of some of the high earners during this year's budget talks.

"Once I saw the numbers, it raised a lot of questions. Some of those numbers are very high," he said. "That's a heck of a lot of money."

Duncan said he has requested an evaluation of the county's overtime policies to determine the effectiveness of some employees putting in hundreds of hours a year on top of their regular work schedules. "There has to be a balance. There has to be a break-even point," he said. "The unanswered question is when does it become cheaper to hire someone else."

Stephen S. Fuller, an economist at George Mason University, said the answer may lie in how much work can be expected from any one human being. "At some point, there's a cost in performance," Fuller said. "To the point that {workers} become tired or inefficient, there's a cost."

David G. Walchak, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said that police departments nationwide increasingly have relied on overtime to squeeze more work out of smaller forces without having to pay benefits for additional employees. Reliance on overtime also has become a good political position for elected officials because they're not expanding the public payroll.

"The downside," he added, "is that productivity decreases and the likelihood that officers will take sick time increases with every overtime hour they work."

County Council President Gail H. Ewing (D-At Large) said county officials have been working to address the overtime issue for several years. Overtime spending is still significantly below the $14.5 million that was spent in fiscal 1989, at the height of the booming '80s.

Ewing cited as an example the council's recent action to bring in less expensive workers rather than allow county police officers being paid overtime to provide security at public parking garages. And she agreed that some use of overtime could help reduce overall costs.

Yet she, too, questioned whether having some employees make tens of thousands of dollars in overtime was "going way overboard."

"There's something wrong here. There's something very wrong," she said. "The question I have is how can these people work so many hours?"

According to The Post's estimates, three employees -- Bowers, Maryn and firefighter Darren W. Carter -- each logged more than 1,000 overtime hours last year.

To Maryn, a 61-year-old divorcee whose children are grown, her police dispatcher job is like a second home. She has taken 911 calls at the county's Emergency Communications Center for eight years.

"I've worked hard for every little penny," she said. "You can't come in here and work overtime and not do anything. This is not a place where you can sit and not do anything. You can't kill time here."

She works long hours, she said, because she's free from other commitments. "They don't have to worry about me saying I have a kid who is sick or a husband who doesn't want me to work today. That's one of the reasons I like to work here so much: It's better than cleaning the house," Maryn said.

Windham, the traffic management expert, was at the top of the list of county employees not in the police or fire departments. He worked about 618 extra hours last year. Windham is one of a team of five workers responsible for routing traffic in emergency situations, providing traffic advisories on the county's cable system and controlling all the traffic lights in Montgomery.

"There is quite a bit of overtime involved in emergency work," he said, noting that he often gets called back to work in the middle of the night to deal with bad weather. Snow and electrical storms are two frequent culprits. "Anything that involves the transportation system, we're there."

Bowers, who recently was promoted to captain, made $41,287 in overtime last year, more than any other county employee.

"As much as the county gave me, I really believe I gave much more," Bowers said. "I really feel confident saying that. I've really worked hard for the fire department."

His bosses agreed. Bowers is one of more than 100 trained station officers, one of only eight backup district chiefs in the county, providing him with a versatility that gets him as much overtime as he's willing to take.

He also works as a deputy safety officer for the department, serves on its accident review team and is a member of the honor guard -- a position that cannot be voluntary and must be compensated under federal labor laws. In addition, he's an instructor at the fire academy, a job that sometimes keeps him in the classroom until 11 p.m. on weekdays or on weekends.

And if that isn't enough, he is a member of the county's Collapse Rescue Team, which last year helped out in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. On that assignment alone, Bowers worked 156 overtime hours.

"Some of these guys are workaholics," said Grover, who described Bowers as one of his best employees. "You really can't fault them for that."

Even Duncan, reminded that Bowers made more than he did last year, remarked that the firefighter earned it, especially when he was crawling through the rubble of the Oklahoma City bomb blast.

"Last year, he probably deserved it more than I did," Duncan said. William Casey, director of computer-assisted reporting, and Margot Williams, Metro resource director, contributed to this report. BEYOND 9 TO 5 IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY Montgomery County spent about $11 million on overtime pay last year in addition to $113 million in base salary. Of that, 63 percent went to firefighters and police officers, according to a Washington Post analysis of the county's payroll. School and court employees are not included in the county payroll. Here's a look: OVERTIME, BY DEPARTMENT Fire and rescue

28.3% Public works and transportation 22.1% Other departments

14.5% Police

35.1% DEFINITIONS FOR TABLE Salary: All figures are accurate as of May 14, 1996. Overtime pay: Calendar year 1995. Total compensation: May vary slightly from actual total compensation because of changes in individuals' base pay during 1995 and 1996. Overtime as a percentage of base salary: Percentage is an estimate because of indiv-iduals' base pay raises during 1995 and 1996. Estimated overtime hours: Takes into account the individual employee's workweek, which can range from 40 to 48 hours, depending on job description, and is based on a standard overtime hourly rate of 1.5 times the hourly salary rate. TOP 25 OVERTIME RECIPIENTS Employee/

Base Overtime Total

Overtime Est. hours of Job title

salary pay

comp. % of base

overtime

$

$

$

worked

worked Margot M. Maryn/

34,411 25,172 59,583

73%

1,014 Police tech II Robert M. Camplair/ 47,345 33,892 81,237

72

993 Master firefighter/rescuer Darren W. Carter/ 33,826 23,615 57,441

70

1,162 Firefighter/rescuer III George P. Gillis/ 27,508 18,321 45,829

67

924 Police services aide Richard R. Bowers/ 62,191 41,287 103,478

66

1,105 Fire/Rescue lieutenant Michael P. LaPadula/ 41,713 23,784 65,497

57

791 Police tech III Edwin M. Wiles/

44,405 23,120 67,525

52

758 Firefighter/rescuer III Carlos M. Alfaro/ 43,042 22,372 65,414

52

865 Firefighter/rescuer III Denise S. Fox/

48,802 24,436 73,238

50

833 Fire/Rescue lieutenant Gary K. Mann/

53,256 26,183 79,439

49

716 Fire/Rescue sergeant Paul Mitchell/

36,895 17,640 54,535

48

663 Corrections officer III Peter A. Friedman/ 41,225 19,487 60,712

47

688 Master firefighter/rescuer Mary A. Prater/

35,942 16,973 52,915

47

655 Police services aide William R. Morrison/ 45,044 21,177 66,221

47

652 Police officer III Patrick B. McTighe/ 48,529 22,400 70,929

46

768 Master firefighter/rescuer Jeffrey C. Bolden/ 35,736 16,328 52,064

46

634 Corrections officer III Donald A. Henson/ 34,528 15,725 50,253

46

632 Deputy sheriff II Gregory L. Windham/ 46,987 20,943 67,930

45

618 Traffic management tech II Colleen E. Krumpach/ 27,508 12,131 39,639

44

612 Police services aide William C. Richards/ 51,784 22,008 73,792

42

697 Fire/Rescue lieutenant Kenneth R. Odell/ 46,987 19,896 66,883

42

587 Police tech III Mary E. Nolan/

37,039 15,454 52,493

42

579 Police tech III Stephanie T. Durham/ 40,955 16,874 57,829

41

571 Police tech supervisor Raymond R. Sanchez/ 37,209 15,089 52,298

41

665 Master firefighter/rescuer Arvell C. Cole/

23,665 9,585 33,250

41

562 Ride-On bus operator SOURCE: Washington Post analysis and Montgomery County payroll records.