Overtime in state government — and not just on the runaway MBTA — is becoming a wallet whopper, a Herald payroll analysis shows.
The T is leading the way with $67.5 million spent so far this year on extra hours, the Comptroller’s Office reports. And more capital improvements are on the fast track.
The State Police, at $41.59 million, pulls up next, followed by the Department of Correction, mostly guards, who have locked up $41.4 million in OT this year.
The Department of Mental Health is next at $25 million and UMass, by far the state’s largest employer, has claimed a modest, for them, $11.54 million in extra hours.
But it’s the Top 10 OT earners that have watchdogs wondering how anyone can function at peak efficiency working all those shifts.
“These staggering overtime payments defy imagination,” said Mary Connaughton of the Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts research organization that espouses limited government and free markets. “How can employees possibly be productive if they are working so many hours that their OT doubles their base pay?”
The Herald posed that question to T officials this summer as the Orange Line work was about to commence.
T spokesman Joe Pesaturo defended the hefty overtime — and the “forepersons” who dominate the list of top earners — by saying it’s all part of the T’s “aggressive plans to accelerate safety improvements.”
Connaughton, director of government transparency at the Pioneer think tank, has her doubts.
“The public deserves to know the thought process behind these mind-boggling decisions to approve OT at sky-high levels,” she said.
The DOC said “the department remains focused on recruiting, training, and activating classes of new, diverse candidates.” As for state prisons, they say not to worry they all have “appropriate staffing.”
Closing down MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole over the next two years will also help staffing at other prisons, the DOC added.
But a few clock-punching guards are cashing in, records show.
So far this year, total pay has eclipsed $300,000 for two state employees in the waning days of summer. That includes a T foreman who has earned $211,740 in overtime, bringing his total pay to $318,733 as of the end of this week.
Right behind him was a Department of Mental Health nurse who has put in for $204,674 in overtime for a 2022 payout to date of $341,512.
Three DOC officers have pushed past $140,000 in overtime, with plenty more paychecks to go in 2022. Other MBTA workers and State Police troopers round out the Top 10 overtime earners who put in for between $144,000 to $160,000 in overtime, records show.
This all hits as the U.S. stock market is suffering one of its worst weeks and inflation worries dog the economy. New hires are hard to come by, employers are still saying, but costs are climbing beyond what many households can afford.
It’s also forcing consumers to start watching their bank accounts — especially with the winter fast approaching and heating bills will have homeowners turning red and bundling up the family on cold nights.
Send all news tips to joed@bostonherald.com.
