Some Everett Police officers hit the overtime jackpot at the Encore Boston Harbor casino

Herald file photo
An Everett Police van parked in the area around Encore Casino on Aug. 13, 2019. A Herald analysis at city overtime pay shows some Everette cops are hitting the OT jackpot with stints at the casino. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

By Lance Reynolds | lreynolds@bostonherald.com

PUBLISHED: January 28, 2023 at 2:51 p.m. | UPDATED: January 30, 2023 at 1:09 p.m.

State workers aren’t the only ones loving all the overtime up for grabs. Those at the municipal level are raking in thousands in extra dollars by working outside regular hours, too.

Case in point: the Everett Police Department.

JUST ADDED: Complete Everett payroll plus OT…

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The city’s top four OT earners are a pair of police patrolmen and officers who more than doubled their base pay by clocking in an unknown amount of extra hours, according to an analysis into the city’s final payroll for 2022, obtained via a Herald public records request.

The top two, both patrolmen, earned more than $315,000 in gross earnings, while the third and fourth highest earners took home a final income well north of $200,000.

Encore Boston Harbor is a major player in the whopping overtime pay, City Councilor Stephanie Martins told the Herald on Friday. While Everett does station some police officers full-time at the integrated resort featuring a hotel, harborwalk, casino, restaurants and more, it’s not the case for all, Martins said.

“A lot of the times the officers do choose to still work regular shifts and pick up the overtime … (at) the casino,” she said. “They want to make as much as they can. They fully embrace those hours.”

More than 100 officers in the city’s police department earned at least some OT pay last year, and amounts vary greatly. The difference between the fourth and fifth highest earners is $55,854.

If the Everett police patrolman who earned $196,863.37 in OT — the city’s highest — and more than tripled his base pay to $330,884 were on the state OT list, he would would have missed cracking the top 10 by less than $1,000.

The initial story in the Herald’s “Your Tax Dollars at Work” project earlier this month found that 220 state employees earned $100,000 or more last year in overtime pay. Dozens more came close, punching in for $80,000 to $90,000 in OT.

“What you see in some of these municipalities is similar to what you see in state government when it comes to overtime pay,” said Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. “There is no one at the top drawing a line in the sand for how much is too much.”

Everett police did not return Herald voicemails seeking comment regarding the OT situation Friday. Mayor Carlo DeMaria could not be reached for comment Friday.

Martins, who is in her second term on the City Council and chaired the council’s public safety committee last term, said councilors in the past have questioned where the OT is coming from.

“The answer we got is ‘This is a person working inside the casino,’” she said.

Encore has not provided comment since asked Friday.

In fiscal year 2022, the city budgeted $1 million in police OT pay, but the police department exceeded that amount by over $500,000, racking up $1.53 in total OT pay, according to city budget documents. That represented an increase from the $1.1 million spent on OT in fiscal year 2021.

DeMaria requested a police OT budget of $1.5 million this fiscal year, but the actual allocated amount was unclear Friday because the adopted budget is not posted on the city website.

As Encore’s operator Wynn Resorts eyes an expansion, Martins said councilors are making a “huge” push for the city to renegotiate its community host agreement so Everett can receive more contributions to the community from the resort.

The proposed expansion would develop 13 acres of paved parking lots that Wynn Resorts owns across the street into an entertainment destination. The City Council voted last month to allow for the rezoning of the site.

“They’re growing and bringing all of these things at the expense of our traffic, our public safety and everything else,” Martins said.

This is part of an ongoing series of stories the Herald will be writing as part of the “Your Tax Dollars at Work” project. Go to BostonHerald.com to see databases of state and municipal payrolls. If you have a tip, email joed@bostonherald.com or lreynolds@bostonherald.com.