New York's state comptroller says the Cuomo administration racked up a record $611 million in overtime payments over the past year.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the 16 percent increase in overtime payments between 2012 and 2013 comes mostly from employees in institutional settings, like prisons and psychiatric centers. The state police also paid troopers $35 million in overtime payments, at an average of over $74 an hour.
DiNapoli says the uptick comes at a time when state government has been downsizing employees.
“We ask state agencies to take a hard look at how they use overtime,” DiNapoli said. “And to certainly double their efforts to reduce what is becoming an expensive habit.”
In a statement, a spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget office defended the practice. Spokesman Morris Peters says the 2.4 percent increase in overtime hours is “dwarfed by the fact that overall payroll has decreased by nearly $750 million” in the past three years.
