Feb 20, 2008 9:58 am US/Eastern
MD Schools Paid Nearly $28-Million In Overtime
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
As Miami Dade School officials crunch the numbers to decide how they will handle a decrease in revenue from the state, a new audit shows they may need to get a better handle on the amount of overtime being paid.
A new state audit report shows county's school district paid out nearly $28-million in overtime in the last fiscal year, but did not adequately document the need for the payments.
The auditor general's report found total overtime payments came to $27.8 million. Overtime pay for bus drivers accounted for $3.7 million of that total, while overtime paid to school police officers came in at just over $3-million. Nearly 800 school district employees earned $10-thousand or more in overtime. The report found one refrigeration mechanic, who has a yearly salary of $59,588 and logged more than 24 hours of overtime a week for 52 weeks, was paid $51,570 in overtime. A computer specialist, with a base salary of $45,329 a year, racked up more than 13-hundred hours of overtime to earn an extra $39,752 in pay.
Officially, school district officials will not be ordered to make any changes in their overtime policy because auditors did not find any violations of state or federal laws.
Miami Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew, who said earlier this month that he'll consider laying off hundreds of employees to balance the budget, has a month to respond to the state audit report. The Miami Dade School Board has been ordered to slash $240 million from the budget over the next four years due to a projected decrease in state education budget cutbacks.
Records show overtime payments have been on the increase over the last five years. More than $8-million in overtime payments were made in the 2002-2003 school year. That figure rose to $31-million two years later.
State auditors have suggested the district, for the third time in since 2002 that they should look for alternatives to large overtime payments.
School Board member Marta Pérez told
CBS4 news partners at the
Miami Herald she was outraged by the findings.
''Some of it may be justified, but you can't tell me that that much overtime is justified,'' Pérez said. ``I'm not surprised, but this is a very bad thing. This means that monies have been misspent, and we need all our monies for our teachers and our programs.''
School district spokesman John Shuster said the report had been received and was under review.
(© MMIX CBS Television Stations. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald contributed material for this report)
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