DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- From fighting crime to community meetings and staff introductions, DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton had a lot of work to do when he took office in January 2007.

In fact, Bolton can tell you exactly how much work he’s done and how long it took him to do it. Bolton documents every hour of overtime to the decimal point.

“You don’t expect the executive in any organization to be a clock watcher,” said labor attorney Michael Caldwell, counsel for the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police. “Every police chief I know works awfully long and hard hours. I would assume Chief Bolton does too.”

As salaried employees, many bosses don’t get reimbursed for long days. Chief Bolton does. In fact he took off 36 days – more than seven weeks in 2007.

CBS 46 check with other counties. Most other metro Atlanta chiefs don’t get comp time.

Neither Chief George Hatfield in Cobb County, Chief Cassandra Jones in Fulton County, nor Chief Charles Waters in Gwinnett county are eligible for comp time.

CBS 46 tried to talk to Chief Bolton about the issue, but he refused to go on camera.

DeKalb County commissioner Kathie Gannon said she was not aware of the chief’s absences and said that even if the commission wanted to do something about it, they can’t.

“In DeKalb County, we have a different organization of our county government than any of the other 158 counties,” Gannon said. “We have a CEO form of government.”

So it’s all up to CEO Vernon Jones. After requests to speak with Jones were repeatedly put off, CBS 46 caught up with him at the State of the County address on Tuesday.

“Did you approve 36 days of comp time for Chief Terrell Bolton in 2007?” CBS 46’s Joanna Massee asked. “I'll be happy to answer all your questions about Chief Bolton,” Jones said. “Tonight we're concentrating on the State of the County address. We have hard working employees .”

Jones later said he would sit down and discuss the issue at a later date.

But that day has not come. CBS 46 once again called to set up the interview and was put off yet again.

Anonymously, some DeKalb officers said they wonder where the chief spends his time. One said, “I think that’s why he has a big picture of himself in the lobby so we know what he looks like.”

Another officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “I’ve actually seen him one time since he’s been here. He was off duty. That’s not good odds in my opinion.”

So how much does all this comp time cost DeKalb taxpayers?

Currently, the chief makes between $13,000 and $14,000 a month. At that rate, a month and a half of comp time is worth more than $20,000.