Overtime pay at the city and County of Denver shot up 23 percent in 2015, reports Art Kane at ColoradoWatchdog.org. Taxpayers are footing $8.6 million more than the year before.
From Kane’s story:
For example, police overtime funded by taxpayers went from $2.4 million in 2014 to $2.9 million last year – a nearly 20 percent increase – but at the same time the city hired five new officers and 31 new civilian staff members, the database of overtime payments and the city’s budget shows.
Overall, the city hired nearly 400 new employees, budget figures show, and expects to hire an additional 266 full-time employees this year.
Some of the staggering overtime earnings include those of Sgt. Richard Louis Coisman and Officer Joseph P. Flynn, who were each paid nearly $300,000 in overtime over four years, Kane reports. You read that right. Our jaws dropped, too.
The sheriff’s department also wrote huge checks to some of its deputies who picked up extra hours. Kane writes:
Three sheriff’s deputies – Jae Hyuk Oh, Jerry Louis Jones and Louis D. Martinez – each made about $250,000 in overtime over the past four years on top of salaries of about $71,000 a year. Jones, who booked the most overtime in the city last year with 2,120 hours, made $107,000 last year just in overtime, the city database shows.
These overtime earnings dwarf the average median income of a worker for Denver, which was $34,423 in 2014.
In one small piece of good news for the budget conscious: The Denver Police Department spent $300,000 less than it budgeted for overtime last year.
Read Kane’s entire story here at Colorado Watchdog.
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