State employee overtime has been in the headlines this week as the Shumlin administration scrambled to get ahead of a story by Mike Donoghue of the Burlington Free Press.
Donoghue had the scoop on James Deeghan, a state police sergeant who is accused of falsifying overtime on his timesheet. He resigned on Wednesday morning, and several hours later Gov. Peter Shumlin held a press conference to declare that the state would not only investigate Deeghan, but would also start a broader probe into overtime pay for troopers.
On Friday, the Department of Human Resources released documents detailing the top 150 state salaries, a spreadsheet of all overtime pay listed by state employee, and a run down of overtime expenditures by department.
The takeaway? Two classified state employees in the Department of Health made more last year than the governor — Steven Shapiro, chief medical examiner ($191,574) and Elizabeth Bundock, deputy medical examiner ($173,914). Gov. Peter Shumlin’s gross pay was $158,402. Craig Jones, the director of the Blueprint for Health, is the next highest earner with a salary of $142,500. The three medical professionals are doctors.
Out of the 150 top paid state employees, 127 earn more than $100,000 or more, for a total of more than $12.7 million.
Who are the people in the top tier? Thirty percent of the top wage earners work for the Department of Public Safety (51). Two other groups dominate the list: judges (35), and agency secretaries and department commissioners (13).
Sgt. James Deeghan earned $136,574 and Sgt. Michael Roj made $140,928 in fiscal year 2012, including overtime pay. Col. Thomas L’Esperance, chief of the state police, earned $133,107. Keith Flynn, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the state police, took home $106,912.
Overtime details
Overtime expenditures were $16.2 million and increased by 12.5 percent in fiscal year 2011. The state will pay $18.5 million for overtime in 2012, according to a spreadsheet from the Department of Human Resources. The increase is 14 percent.
Kate Duffy, commissioner of the Department of Human Resources, says overtime costs would likely have been flat in fiscal year 2012 if it weren’t for $2.5 million in expenditures related to Tropical Storm Irene. The state spent $1 million more on overtime for mental health workers, and $1.2 million more on transportation employees in 2012.
In 2011, the state had a total of 7,742 workers, according to a summary of “statistical highlights” on page 13 of the Department of Human Resources January workforce report. The total is now 8,373. Since March the state has brought on 65 new workers. The average total compensation package for exempt (administration hires) and classified workers, including benefits is $74,595.
More than 142 state employees earned more than $15,000 in discretionary overtime compensation in fiscal year 2012. Of those, 41 work for the Department of Mental Health; 38 work for the Department of Public Safety; 24 are part of the Agency of Transportation; and 19 are employees of the Department of Corrections.
The information from the state does not include mandatory overtime for Department of Corrections and the Department of Mental Health employees.
In all, 47 state workers made $20,000 to $30,000 in discretionary overtime; five made between $30,000 and $50,000 in overtime pay.
The top five include:
Sgt. Michael Roj, Vermont State Police: $48,174
Brad McCormick, correctional officer, Department of Corrections: $36,350
Sgt. James Deeghan, Vermont State Police: $36,169
Laurie Lanphear, Deputy Director of Retirement Operations, State Treasurer’s office: $31,685
John Cannon, Correctional Facility Shift Supervisor, Department of Corrections, $31,395
Read Mike Donoghue’s analysis in the Burlington Free Press.
The Department of Human Resources documents can be viewed and downloaded at the bottom of this post. Because these are large files, they are compressed in the Document Cloud viewer. If you click on “PDF of spreadsheet” or “original document” on the righthand side of the page, you can see a large format version. The overtime pay spreadsheet is a very large file — it is still uploading.
CORRECTION: Thirty-eight employees for the Department of Public Safety earned more than $15,000 in overtime pay in 2012. We erroneously reported that the workers were with the Department of Public Service.
