New York paid out record $761.2M in overtime in 2017
almost 8 years in NY Daily
ALBANY — An upstate prison nurse raked in a state-leading $153,708 in overtime in 2017, the Daily News has learned.
With the overtime on top of her base $63,293 salary, Janet Johnson, a nurse at Franklin Correctional Facility, received $217,000 in pay in 2017, according to records provided by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli’s office.
Johnson, according to the records, worked 2,445.5 hours of overtime last year, which equates to more than 65 extra weeks for work.
All told, state overtime costs grew by 9.7% in 2017 over 2016.
The state paid out a record $761.2 million in extra pay, up from $694.2 million.
The increase comes after state OT actually dipped in 2016 by 3.1%, the first time there was a drop in years.
The Daily News under the state's Freedom of Information law requested from DiNapoli’s office information on the state's top 30 overtime earners and how much each agency paid out.
Johnson was not alone in raking in hefty overtime payments, the records show.
Of the top 30 overtime earners in state government, all made more than $109,000 in extra money over their base pay, the records show.
Denise Williams, a treatment assistant at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center in Manhattan, for the second year in a row ranked second in overtime. She made $151,808 on top of her $71,072 base salary.
Williams in 2015 actually was the state overtime queen, having made $171,994 in extra pay.
Murial Briggs, a worker at Downstate Medical Center Hospital, was third in 2017 with $146,921 in overtime earnings over her base salary of $98,848.
The state paid out a combined $761.2 million in overtime, up from $694.2 million in 2016.
Among the state agencies, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision paid out the most in OT — $221 million, which was up 7.8% over 2016.
The Office for People with Developmental Disabilities was next at $133.1 million — which was actually down half a percentage point from 2016.
The Office of Mental Health paid $109.1 million in overtime, which was flat from the previous year.
The state police saw its overtime grow in 2017 by 55.2% over 2016. The agency paid out $74.2 million in 2017, up from $47.8 million the prior year.
DiNapoli’s own office saw a 10.2% increase after paying out $3.7 million in OT, up from $3.4 million in 2016.
Twenty-seven agencies saw their overtime actually drop in 2017, including the offices of Children and Family Services, Information Technology Services, and the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs.
The state office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the Attorney General’s Office, the parks department, and Office of General Services also saw declines.
Union officials have long argued that Gov. Cuomo's push to freeze or downsize the state payroll is at odds with round-the-clock staffing requirements at prisons and psychiatric hospitals, forcing a reliance on mandatory overtime.