At a time when the City of Atlanta is facing a nearly $70 million budget deficit, a CBS 46 investigation discovered that the city paid workers on average a total of more than $24 million a year in overtime for the past few years.

Some city leaders said they had no idea who was getting the overtime and how much was being spent.

According to 2006 payroll data, the most recent data available, four city departments topped the list for overtime spending. They include watershed at more than $8.2 million, fire services at nearly $5.4 million, police services at nearly $4 million and corrections at more than $3.2 million.

Atlanta city councilwoman, Mary Norwood, said the numbers “astounded” her and that she planned to investigate.

A CBS 46 investigation shows nearly 500 city employees with more than a 50 percent increase in regular pay due to overtime.

The numbers were calculated by CBS 46 using Atlanta’s 2006 raw payroll data obtained from the city’s Human Resources Department. In one example, a water systems control operator had regular pay of around $25,000, but after overtime and other benefits, he grossed more than $90,000 for the year.

“If you hadn’t brought this up, we probably wouldn’t have been discussing it except maybe when we got the total figures and said, ‘Oh, this is kind of out of wack,’” said Councilwoman Felicia Moore.

Both councilwomen said more than $24 million in overtime is as much of a surprise to them as the recent $70 million city deficit, because they only see budgeted payroll totals from each department, not a line item pay report. Overtime funding comes from several places, including the general fund and some grant money.

The mayor's office spokesperson claimed it was “impossible (for them) to verify this information” explaining, they “do not have any documents here that reflect the data in the format presented to us.”

CBS 46 extracted the raw Human Resources’ payroll data to a spreadsheet in order to perform analysis of the data.

Chief Financial Officer Janice Davis was willing to talk about the average overtime totals, again in excess of $24 million.

"It is cheaper for me to pay an employee 1.5 for overtime to avoid the additional fringes that would come with hiring another employee,” Davis said.

Davis explained that the City of Atlanta pays an average of 75 cents to every dollar for employee benefits.

At Seyfarth Shaw in Atlanta, attorney Fritz Smith, counsels employers on overtime issues. He said the Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal law requiring the payment of overtime, was intended in part to boost the economy with jobs, not to encourage excessive overtime.

“It was put in place in order to deter employers from overworking employees,” Smith said. “And one of the purposes of the statute was to also encourage employers to hire more employees.”

Who makes decisions on overtime versus new hires in the City of Atlanta? For now, overtime is managed by each department and neither the CFO nor the City Council sees detailed overtime spending.

Norwood said she is calling for more oversight on all city budget issues, including overtime.

“The information is available if the city council would like to dig deeper,” Davis said. To that Moore replied, “We may have to start digging. I’ll get my shovel out.”

Top Ten Overtime Earners

UPDATE:
CBS 46 stands by our story on overtime issues involving the city of Atlanta. Friday the city released the following statement:

The CBS Atlanta station recently ran a story on the City of Atlanta's overtime and payroll. The story clearly misrepresented the facts and it is important to clarify the facts for the public.

The story implied that 2006 overtime payments to Aviation and Watershed employees had an impact on the current projected shortfall-that is incorrect. Neither of these departments is in the General Fund, which is where the shortfall is projected. Budgeting for overtime is a standard municipal practice and not the exception in local government.

Overtime attributed to the Department of Watershed Management is largely the result of its attempts to meet the extremely tight Consent Decree deadlines. As you are no doubt aware, Atlanta's 15-year deadline is roughly half the deadlines enjoyed by other cities under similar consent decrees. Leaks, main breaks and sewer collapses do not limit themselves to an 8-5 schedule. CBS 46 has been diligent in covering the problems with leaks in Atlanta, and with a workforce of some 2,000, including administrative personnel, to cover a 600-square-mile area; it is common sense to realize that some overtime will be warranted. Our customers, whose water service is interrupted because of a main break, do not want to see an entire crew, which has been working the break for hours and is intimately familiar with the situation, stop working simply because its daily shift has ended. A program as overwhelming and wide-ranging as Clean Water Atlanta is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days a week proposition.

In fact, the information the city mentions on aviation was not even addressed in our CBS 46 report. We believe our story is accurate. During our investigation, CBS 46 contacted the city several times regarding clarification of the facts of this story.