tool name

Sunday, May. 31, 2009

Leaders' aides get generous overtime

$300,000 paid in 4 years

FRANKFORT — As the Kentucky General Assembly repeatedly slashed the budgets of most state agencies in recent years, some legislative leaders were approving generous overtime payments for their staffers.

Over the past four years, 23 aides to House and Senate leaders have racked up nearly $300,000 in overtime payments, records obtained by the Herald-Leader show.

In the House, there was little oversight of how overtime was awarded and House leaders could produce no written policies regarding overtime payments. Some staffers were able to accumulate additional payments of more than $10,000 a year in excess of their salaries.

House leaders also approved more than one bulk overtime payment in the same calendar year for some employees, a benefit unavailable to employees who don't work directly for an elected official.

The Legislative Research Commission — the bureaucracy that serves the Kentucky General Assembly — has 439 full and part-time employees, 58 of whom work directly for legislative leaders. The rest work under the supervision of LRC Director Bobby Sherman.

Most legislative staff are salaried employees. Rather than receiving overtime payments as they are earned, workers accumulate the extra hours, which can be traded for time off or cashed out in one bulk payment per year.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, in his first year at the helm of the lower chamber, said leaders will have to examine House overtime policies given the Herald-Leader's questions about previous payments.

Charlotte Ellis Land, Stumbo's chief of staff, said they found no overtime policy when they took over the office from former Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green. Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, defeated Richards in January.

Ellis Land said they were not aware that in previous years people sometimes received multiple overtime payments, called "Block 80s," or that some of those payments were for more than $10,000.

"It's something that we're going to have to look at," Ellis Land said of the overtime policy.

Richards did not return repeated calls for comment, but others said the overtime payments to staff were justified, noting that legislative aides who work for leadership often clock 16- and 18-hour days during legislative sessions. In the past few years, there have been special additional sessions on top of regular legislative sessions that begin each January.

Regular LRC staff may not be asked to work those kind of hours, legislative leaders said.

"No sane person would put themselves through it," former House Majority Whip Joe Barrows said of the hours leadership staff are expected to work during the session.

Working without overtime

Others say it's not fair for House and Senate leaders to dole out so much overtime when other state employees, including teachers and local prosecutors, put in long hours and receive no additional compensation.

Commonwealth Attorney Ray Larson said two of his prosecutors recently finished a trial that required them to work more than 100 hours in one week. They will get no extra money.

In addition, many commonwealth and county prosecutors had to furlough staff this year because of budget cuts.

"I am proud of our prosecutors and prosecutors across the state who are willing to do the job no matter how much time it takes and without being paid for it," Larson said. "Unfortunately, prosecutors don't have the luxury of paying their staff for additional time, but I guess other agencies do."

When asked why aides to state leaders should get overtime when teachers don't, Stumbo said he didn't know. "That's a pretty good question that needs to be reviewed."

Overtime payments aren't the only relative indulgence enjoyed by the lawmaking branch of state government.

While many state agencies have seen their budgets shrink in recent years, the Kentucky General Assembly's has grown.

Even after cutting its budget by 4 percent to $50.6 million earlier this year, the General Assembly's budget is up 8 percent since 2007.