Audit Finds Errors In Worcester Police Overtime Pay Reporting

WORCESTER, MA — A recent audit of city finances turned up inconsistencies and errors in police overtime and detail pay, resulting in policy changes inside the department.

The Boston firm CliftonLarsonAllen LLP audited Worcester's fiscal year 2019 finances, which included random tests of city accounts ranging from police to a Green Hill Golf Course fund.

In reviewing police overtime pay, the firm found supervisors are not always providing narratives describing why they granted overtime. In other instances, overtime forms did not include the printed name of an officer, making it difficult to tell who the pay was for.

Officers are not supposed to work more than 16 hours in a 24-hour period, except for serious emergencies and investigations. But the audit found "many cases" where officers were claiming overtime in excess of 16 hours to supervise elections.

"Elections would not seem to meet this criteria," the audit said.

The overtime reports for election days were also missing required initials of officers and supervisors, the report said. The audit also found a gap in the department policy covering "overtime requisition slips," which are used to document reasons for overtime.

"Slips were not provided as supporting documentation for all of the sample expenses," the audit found. "Through inquiries, it was stated that slips are not required for certain types of overtime, such as court overtime. However, as noted previously, slips are not documented in the department’s policies and procedures. Therefore, there is no written policy to substantiate which types of overtime require slips and which types of overtime do not require slips."

The department said that it instituted a new policy in fiscal year 2021, which began on July 1, dealing with overtime pay.

"This update addresses items raised including eligibility, reporting, and documentation," the city said in a response to the audit. "The department will monitor the implementation of this policy and refine as necessary and appropriate."

Worcester police spent over $5 million on overtime pay in fiscal year 2019, more than 10 percent of the department's entire budget that year.

The audit also found problems with reporting police detail pay, although the auditors noted "all variances identified were small in nature." In two cases, the number of detail hours didn't match what the officer was paid. In four cases, the supervisor's name was missing from the reporting slip.

The department responded that hours can change during a detail shift, resulting in discrepancies in pay.

"[W]hen multiple officers are assigned to a detail, it is common depending on vendor need that some officers sign out earlier than others," the department wrote in response to the audit. "Therefore, a daily report may not reconcile exactly with a signed slip.

The audit also found that some vendors were being exempted from a 10 percent administrative fee that likely should've been applied.

Detail pay is large source of income for many officers, often pushing their earnings higher than top officials like City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. and even Worcester Police Chief Steven Sargent.

Deputy chief Sean Fleming was the second-highest paid city employee in fiscal 2019 with gross pay of $232,584 — about $2,500 higher than Sargent — and $54,000 in detail pay, according to a list published by MassLive. Of the top 100 highest-paid city employees, 89 were police officers, excluding Sargent. Many earned in excess of $40,000 per year in detail pay. Officer James Ciru topped the list at nearly $120,000 in detail pay in fiscal 2019.

Here's the portion of the audit on police overtime and detail pay:

Worcester fiscal 2019 audit by Neal McNamara on Scribd