Police Chief Gives Himself $300k In OT

Yeah, that sounds like something I'd do.

 

Honestly, yeah, I think I'd take that deal.

 

Yeah, I've been exempt since 1993. You can work 80 hours per week or 1 hour a day, you still get the same pay. There can be approved exceptions, if I could have approved my exceptions I'd either be retired in a country without extradition or in jail. Corruption at it's finest.

 

Sounds like my hometown (in TX)

 

The big question is... Does that OT count toward determining his pension? Some jurisdictions it does; some it doesn't. If it does, and his pension is based on his high 3 years or his last 3 years, 5 years, etc... that extra income COULD mean an additional 50k, 75k, etc.. (per year) of pension as well based on how it's calculated.

Note.... I have no idea how pensions are determined in that jurisdiction, and that bump in pay through OT may not benefit him at all when it comes to his pension. Also, that may be a PD of 3, 5 or 10 cops, and if so (and if the other cops) were unavailable or unwilling to work the extra hours, he may have had no choice and simply "stepped up".

Also, since he's exempt, I'd assume the first paycheck w/OT on it would have sent up a red flag to HR, Finance, etc. and he MAY have went to the City Manager in advance and said, "hey, we are shorthanded and I'll do this, but I'm gonna get paid for it". City Manager may have 'approved' his actions, then someone finds out about it and complains, and now someone's head must roll. Not always is the person's head who's rolling responsible for the bad decision, corruption, or whatever this is determined to be.

Politics are always involved in these type of decisions, employment separations, and they are normally in the background of the incident itself when the people involved are ranking officers/officials.

Just playing devil's advocate and saying we may not be privy to all the facts...

 

Yup. Initial headlines are frequently wrong, but if it's sensational or fits a proper agenda it will get splashed all over. Then in the coming days, weeks, or months the facts start to pop up. It's usually best to use a headline to see if you want to follow a story for a few weeks to see what really happened. Just look at the big news stories of the last couple years and how many of them were so very wrong on initial reporting.

 

Texas teachers follow a similar plan:

 

Mrs. Bandito is in the ISD Transportation Administration. She has teacher retirement and did the math. She'll be able to comfortably retire when she's 105. I told her that's what happens when you marry a trophy husband. We have a lot of upkeep.

 

Yeah. I've already come to the conclusion I'll never be able to retire and will drop dead in front of some very lucky, and probably happy, students.

I started teaching in 2015.

 

Soooo.... quick math w/guesstimates could indicate an additional $40k/per year for the rest of his life if you divide out the 2020 and 2021 OT into a top 5 equation over his base salary. However, that's a big IF, as most jurisdictions and pensions DON'T recognize OT as "salary" (hence the reason for the * next to the word salary). Some count holidays, some count call-out/call-back but not not OT, some count shift differential, other don't...

Another huge benefit to the extra income during the end of a career is 457 account (deferred comp). Money going into a 457 isn't taxed, and if the person declares he's on his final 3 years, he can double up on the amount his allowed to contribute into a 457 (tax free) as a 'catch up period'. So, for example, current federal limit is $20,500 per year into a 457; if he wasn't maxed out for his entire career, he could put an additional $61,500 or $123,000 (tax free) over his last 3 years into that 457 account. Huge tax savings when he can strip up to 40k/per year off income at tax time... For those wondering, once the 457 is drawn from as a supplement to his pension, that money is then eligible to be taxed as income. A lot of folks will also 'roll' that money into their pension and buy additional years that were not served to help increase pension percentage factoring.

Again, doesn't necessarily make the incident/situation dirty, but helps to understand motivations for someone to work an extra 30+ hours/week for a year. But crap that's a lot of hours and damn near impossible to accomplish w/o being in violation of other issues such as rest periods, etc...

 

*An individual who, as a TRS member on Aug. 31, 2005, was at least 50 years old, or met the Rule of 70, or had at least 25 years of service credit should use the three highest years of salary for this calculation.

I looked, albeit briefly, and see no OT disqualifier in TRS.

 

Who’s is writing the checks?

 

Probably varies by city/jurisdiction. At my company it's the accounting department worker bees. So long as the system doesn't flag whatever is submitted, they don't/aren't supposed to question it. Thus, if it's authorized, it gets paid.

 

Im former leo in texas. My old dept did pay us salary AND we earned ot pay over 40 as well. This was normal practice back in 2005 in le in texas. Not sure about now. And of cpurse for him to get that much would not be legit but ot on salary can be a thing.

 

Exactly. The ultra high numbers are the thing that smell fishy to me, too. Taking the money from the first post and adding it up it was $285,078 in just OT. Say 40 hours OT per week times 52 weeks for 2080 OT hours. $285,078 divided by 2080 hours is an OT rate of $137.05 per hour. That'd put the base pay rate at $91.37 an hour. Run that for 40 hours to get weekly, then times 52 for a base annual salary of $190,052.

IDK, but I don't think a small town is paying their police chief nearly $200K for a base salary. I could be wrong, but it definitely makes the spidey sense tingle.


Edit: Reread the first post, and this might not have all been in one year, but the numbers are still super high for the 9 month period mentioned.

 

If the chief in question here was truly an exempt employee and was therefore stealing from the city, he should be fired and lose ALL of his retirement/pension/medical. There has to be disincentives. You see lots of this garbage

 

Ugh. I wish my OT was double time.

 

The actual article (I think through ABC news) said his base salary is $151k/yr. Which means his hrly wage is just over $70. So, if OT is calculated at 1.5 times base, he's making about $105/hr OT. Most police and firefighter contracts have clauses for CallOut/CallBack OT (which is normally non-scheduled or less than 24 or 48 hrs notice), and it usually is paid at a higher rate such as double time. Additionally, holidays, etc. can be compensated in a number of ways (such as OT or a higher pay rate). Our contract required that everyone (working or not) got paid straight time for a holiday. Plus, those who physically worked the holiday got an additional 'premium pay' for working the holiday (the hours they worked were paid at double time). So, those who worked a 10-hour holiday would receive 10 hours of pay at triple time for that day. Our contract had 13 paid holidays, which would land on about 6 or 7 of our normal work days. So, in any given year we'd have 70 hours of triple time for the holidays in our work period plus another 6 or 7 holidays at straight time. That was an extra $10k/year w/o even touching "normal" OT... It adds up pretty quick!

It's really not about how much he was making or made. It's about whether it was on the up and up, or whether there was some shady crap going on. A simple interview w/other officers on the department would bring a clear picture and quick resolution to the concerns.

Given the fact that most states were operating under various 'Emergency Declarations', it isn't a far stretch to have several good excuses on why the extra time was required and far exceeding 'routine' staffing or obligations for this person.

 

Damn. Didn't know the salary was that high. With that being the case the OT numbers are way way less shocking. Might be a witch hunt after all. Only time will tell.

 

Something that I don't think a lot of folks are aware of also is that during the emergency covid circus declarations there was a crap ton of money being pushed out to the states by the feds (fema oversight). The states would then funnel funds to the smaller jurisdictions based on their "expenses" during the emergency declarations. Manpower, hourly wages, OT, etc. were also reimbursable expenses. So, many smaller jurisdictions would have their guys working normal shifts/duties for their normal pay/salary and would pay guys OT to assist w/hospital security, community outreach, EOC staff, etc. during covid emergency times.

It's not uncommon for a high ranking official to sit on larger county or state based EOC or task force type position during these types of events. An example of this could be this small town chief may have spent 9 months working an additional 2-3 days a week, 10 or 12 hour shifts, as a liaison or operations chief or logistics chief, etc. for the larger operation. All of which was in addition to his normal duties, and all of which was compensated at OT (with the intention of the City being reimbursed by the Feds)...

 

Local government and regular business is not the same. And a town of 4400…someone else is in on this. That doesn’t just happen.

 

That’s the postal way. Time and a half after 8 hours. Double time after 10 hours.

 

If the pay rate was what I have now, I'd love it. I'm just not willing to give up my schedule.

Anyway, as I said before, until all the details are known it's hard to say if this is actually fishy or just sensationalistic/slanderous journalism.

 

That’s some minor league corruption. If you need to see some major league corruption check out the police chief in Honolulu and his wife the deputy prosecutor.

The basics of what happened:

https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/11/f...rine-kealoha-sentenced-to-13-years-in-prison/


A nice list of the people involved:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kh...ms-with-more-indictments-in-kealoha-saga/amp/

Then he got a 250k payout AFTER all this.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/01/h...acing-a-corruption-probe-got-a-250000-payout/

 

Maybe, just maybe he was BUSY running off catalytic converter thief’s single handedly during Covid… lol

 

Totally worth it then

 

Yea the whole covid thing prob bumped the rate up as well. In 05 i did katrina and rita releif work, and were paid premium ot for emergency callout. This is probably less corruption and more manipulation and taking advantage of the situation. Town that small not much going on , plus if youre short staffed youre the chief, hire more personnel. That or get on the news saying " hey im chief of police doing ot because were short staffed" to run a pr campaign to highlight the issue and get more hired. But to just stay quiet and rake it in is the problem here. Again not so much "corruption" as it is manipulation and mismanagement