ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Payroll records suggest the hunt for two escaped killers in northern New York cost more than $1 million a day, with overtime alone for state troopers and corrections officers $22 million higher than last year.
State comptroller records obtained Friday by The Associated Press for June and July show that overtime totaled $41 million for the corrections department and $17.6 million for state police. That’s roughly twice the amount spent for those months in 2014.
Those two agencies led the 23-day manhunt by more than 1,100 officers for Richard Matt and David Sweat, who escaped June 6 from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora after cutting their way through the metal wall of their cells with hacksaw blades smuggled to them.
State forest rangers, federal authorities and Vermont police also joined the search, which ended with Matt shot dead on June 27 and Sweat wounded and caught two days later. Parts of the maximum-security prison, where the men also cut through a steam pipe in the basement, required repairs.
The comptroller’s office declined to comment on the overtime data requested under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. It showed state police overtime $10.6 million higher for five pay dates in June and July than last year. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision overtime was $12.3 million higher.