The Pima County Sheriffβs Department is approaching the end of the fiscal year nearly $2 million over budget for overtime pay, and at one point this year it was paying about $9,000 per day in overtime, records show.
This will be the second straight year the department has drastically exceeded the budget for overtime, a situation that began after Chris Nanos was appointed sheriff in July 2015, shortly after the start of the 2016 fiscal year.
Sheriff Mark Napier said that since taking office in January, heβs drastically reduced overtime costs. He said he will be able to keep the department on budget in the upcoming fiscal year.
An analysis by the Star showed that between July 1, 2016, and Feb. 28, the department was spending an average of $9,300 per day on overtime. From March 1 to May 27, that number was cut almost in half to $4,900. For Pima County employees, the overtime rate is 1Β½ times their regular pay.
The overtime is for roughly 1,400 department employees, including administrators, sworn members and corrections officers.
In fiscal years 2013 and 2014, the department budgeted nearly $1.6 million annually in overtime and finished each year under budget by roughly $130,000 and $440,000, respectively.
In fiscal year 2015 β the last year of former Sheriff Clarence Dupnikβs 35-year-tenure β the department exceeded its overtime budget by $200,000.
By the end of the 2016 fiscal year, the department had spent $2.9 million in overtime, exceeding the budgeted amount by over $2 million. During the 2016 calendar year, the Tucson Police Department, which has roughly 1,300 employees, paid out $6.6 million in overtime.
The sheriffβs overtime budget was given a small boost this fiscal year, with the department allotted $861,000 in overtime out of a total budget of $147 million, records show.
By Feb. 28, the department had paid $2.25 million in overtime, going over budget by nearly $1.4 million. As of mid-May, the department was $1.73 million over budget for overtime.
Napier said he has asked workers in his department to use overtime only when itβs necessary.
Unable to explain why overtime pay became so inflated before his arrival, Napier deferred to the prior administration, saying only that the spending was unreasonable.
The Star was unable to reach Nanos for comment.
βIt was just given away. It was gifts to placate the troops and thatβs just not reasonable,β Napier said. βWe need to be a more fiscally responsible department, and sometimes thatβs not popular. I wonβt gain a lot of popularity by making these decisions internally, but theyβre still the right thing to do.β
For the two-week pay period that ended on Sept. 17, 2016, the department paid 3,900 hours of overtime, Napier said. Overtime was roughly 4,200 hours each of the next two pay periods, but increased to 5,400 hours for the pay period that ended 10 days before the November election.
βI donβt know why there was 5,400 hours of overtime in a pay period. I cannot imagine,β he said, chuckling as he said he wasnβt aware of any extreme blizzard that hit Tucson at the time.
Napier said an extreme emergency, like a destructive monsoon storm, could result in overtime going βthrough the roofβ for a particular pay period, but added that βitβs inexplicable how high it was before.β
For the pay period ending April 22, the department logged 1,300 hours of overtime and in the most recent pay period, the department was down to 962 hours of overtime pay.
βWeβve really been challenging staff to look at overtime not because itβs convenient or nice to have or nice to do, but is it really operationally necessary,β Napier said. βWeβve put additional controls and additional responsibilities on our supervisors to really pay attention to this.β
Napier said that from July 1 to the end of December, the department was averaging 3,950 hours of overtime per pay period, but since heβs taken office, the average has dropped to 1,372 hours.
βWeβre not compromising public safety by our different posture on overtime; weβre just really looking at each instance critically, as we should, and figuring out if itβs a convenience or a necessity,β Napier said. βThe problem with law enforcement-related overtime is that we can exercise some control over it, but not all control over it.β
While grants cover some overtime, there are changes in the works to ensure more overtime is paid for by grants, which do not come out of the sheriffβs general fund.
The grants will affect some of the units that logged the highest amount of overtime, including the narcotics special investigation, which significantly exceeded the unitβs allotted $42,500 in overtime.
That cost will likely be lower next year, since the department is sending a narcotics squad to work with the Counter Narcotics Alliance, after which that squadβs overtime will be paid for by High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, known as HIDTA, funds.
Other departments coming in well over budget for overtime include the Ajo district, violent crimes section, Foothills district and tower section, which is part of the corrections department.
βThe employees understand the need for (cutting the overtime), but nobodyβs happy about having less money in their check,β Napier said. βTheyβve got to feed their families and none of them are paid excessive hourly wages.β
Sworn members and corrections officers are unhappy with the cutbacks, said Eric Cervantez, president of the Pima County Deputy Sheriffβs Association.
Because crime happens at all hours, the reduction in overtime and increased enforcement of its budget could result in a detriment to public safety, Cervantez said.
βThe Sheriffβs Department has a long and proud history of not only responding to calls for service in a timely manner, but being proactive and hunting down criminals and looking for crime in progress,β he said. βWe canβt have a proactive Sheriffβs Department with a strictly enforced, reduced overtime budget.β
While Cervantez said employees understand Napier has restoration and restructuring work to do in the department, veteran deputies and correction officers are still leaving for other agencies with higher pay.
βThe sheriff stated during his campaigning it was one of his top priorities to make the deputies and corrections salaries whole, and we are hopeful that he will make this happen,β he said. βHowever, during the (fiscal year 2018) budget proposal, the sheriff did not ask for increase of salaries, and the association will take note of this.β
While the final budget for the 2018 fiscal year hasnβt been approved, Napier believes the department will be able to stay within its overtime and overall budget.
When Napier took office in January, the department was facing a $6 million projected deficit, forcing him to postpone training academies and eliminate positions to bring the departmentβs finances under control.
βWeβre really going to push budget accountability down to the operational level during the next budget year and work really hard to come into the black with a different focus than I think this department has ever had,β he said.
