Sheriff’s department facing unpaid overtime costs

Federal labor officials are investigating claims that the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department denied its jailers what could add up to several hundred thousand dollars in overtime pay from 2005 to 2007, officials said.

Department officials are “still working to determine the amount of liability,” according to Hamilton County Finance Administrator Louis Wright, but early estimates indicate they likely will have to pay corrections officers “a couple hundred thousand” in unpaid overtime.

“We inherited this problem. It started years ago,” said Ron Parson, director of law enforcement services for the sheriff’s department. “But now we’re on top of it.”

Department personnel learned of the issue last fall after an employee called the U.S. Department of Labor to lodge a complaint, director of administration Don Gorman said.

Officers had been arriving 15 minutes early for required shift meetings before taking the floor for their regular hours, Mr. Gorman said. Then the officers would have to stay 15 minutes late before they were relieved by the next shift, which also was delayed by a staff meeting, he said.

The department should have been paying the officers for that time under federal law but in many cases was not, according to Mr. Gorman.

Because they are not sure how many of the jail’s 127 employees were slighted, he said, department officials must go through each officer’s records individually to determine whether he or she was adequately paid between June 2005 and June 2007.

“We’re going week by week, payroll by payroll, floor by floor,” Mr. Gorman said.

The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered the department to produce the information by Feb. 29, he said.

Department of Labor spokesman Michael Wald confirmed the investigation is ongoing but declined to discuss details. He said there is no set timeline for the probe.

But Mr. Parson — who temporarily is running the jail until a replacement is found for former Director of Corrections Jim Hart — said department officials did not want to wait for the conclusion of the investigation to correct the problem.

“We’ve already rearranged that so we don’t have meetings anymore,” Mr. Parson said, explaining that announcements now are spread through e-mail to eliminate the need for daily meetings. “It’s working out good, too.”

Mr. Gorman said officials are not sure what may have prompted the pay misunderstanding in the first place, but they believe it started long before their former boss, recently resigned Sheriff Billy Long, took office in September 2006.

Mr. Long faces federal extortion, money laundering, firearm and drug charges in an unrelated case.

Recent departures in the department were not related to the overtime problem, according to Mr. Gorman, including the resignation of Mr. Hart, who left at the end of December to take a job with the University of Tennessee’s County Technical Assistance Service.

The termination of the department’s last finance manager, Rick Bealer, also was unrelated, Mr. Gorman said. Mr. Bealer’s work did not threaten the financial health of the department, according to Mr. Gorman.

Mr. Wright confirmed the department is “well within its overall budget” and probably will be able to cover the cost of any overtime repayments without having to ask the county for more money.