Auditor General DePasquale Says Hiring Freeze Caused Correctional Officer Overtime Payments to Triple at SCI Waymart, Wayne County
Over four-year period, overtime payments jumped from $1 million to more than $3.1 million
Auditor General DePasquale Says Hiring Freeze Caused Correctional Officer Overtime Payments to Triple at SCI Waymart, Wayne County
Over four-year period, overtime payments jumped from $1 million to more than $3.1 million
HARRISBURG (Jan. 4, 2017) – Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said today a recent audit of the State Correctional Institution at Waymart (SCI Waymart), Wayne County, found that the lack of sufficient corrections officers prompted annual overtime payments to more than triple over a four-year period, from $1 million to more than $3.1 million.
“SCI Waymart’s huge jump in overtime from 2011 to 2015 was due in part to vacancies in correctional officer positions, resulting from department-mandated hiring freezes and the need to staff the security shifts by paying overtime to existing staff,” DePasquale said. “This is not only a financial issue, it is also a safety issue caused by staff working too many hours.
“In the future, I strongly recommend that the Department of Corrections consider both the financial costs and the potential risk to security due to overworked staff prior to implementing any hiring freezes that would result in staffing vacant positions with overtime rather than hiring enough correctional officers.”
Auditors compared the cost SCI Waymart incurred to pay overtime during the fiscal years ended June 30, 2014 and June 30, 2015 to the cost SCI Waymart would have incurred if correctional officer 1 positions had been hired to cover the overtime hours that SCI Waymart attributed to vacancies.
The analysis indicated that SCI Waymart could have potentially saved more than $1.2 million during the period July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2015 if there had not been hiring freezes and it had been able to hire correctional officers for the vacant positions. The review also found that 26 of the facility’s officers worked 500 hours or more of overtime and received more than $25,000 in overtime pay from July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015.
Auditors also found that overtime hours recorded by SCI Waymart staff on timekeeping reports did not match overtime hours inputted to the payroll system and subsequently paid to the correctional officers.
Of the 1,047 correctional officers listed on the reports reviewed, 26 officers’ overtime hours did not agree to the overtime reports, and of those 26, auditors found that two officers were paid a combined total of six extra hours, totaling $251.
“I am pleased to see that SCI Waymart agrees with my audit findings and already is taking steps to implement the recommendations in this report,” DePasquale said. “It is clear that the leadership of both the correctional facility and the Department of Corrections seem committed to continual improvement.”
The SCI Waymart audit report, which covers July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2015, is available online at: PaAuditor.gov.
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