YOUNGSTOWN — Twenty-one city employees, including 18 in the police department, made more than $30,000 each last year in overtime pay.

Also, two police officers made more money in 2019 in overtime pay than in salary, and a third one nearly did, according to records obtained by The Vindicator.

Police Lt. Frank Rutherford Jr. received $82,558.82 in overtime while getting a salary of $76,341.41 and detective Sgt. Mohammed S. Awad was paid $81,779.29 in overtime with a salary of $64,060.26.

Meanwhile, Dorothy A. Johnson, a police patrol officer, received $55,347.09 in overtime with a salary of $57,725.20.

Members of the police department were paid $1,824,877.84 in overtime last year, up 57 percent from 2018, when there was $1,166,029.89 in overtime.

The jump in overtime for police was the driving force behind the overall increase in overtime in the city.

In 2019, the city paid $3,919,977.07 in overtime compared to $2,833,695.33 in 2018. That’s an overall increase of 38 percent.

POLICE OVERTIME

Police Chief Robin Lees said the main reason for the increase in overtime in his department was because it worked with about 15 fewer officers than it did the year before.

“It increased overtime, but it led to a certain savings (in salary and benefits) because of a lack of officers,” he said. “We’ve hired additional officers and we should have a significant reduction in overtime” this year.

One other reason for the expected decline in overtime this year compared to 2019 is the elimination of the use of speed cameras that issued civil citations. The city ended the program in early November 2019 because of a state law that impacted how much money Youngstown received from the Local Government Fund. A provision in the state’s transportation budget, effective in July 2019, called for communities using speed and red-light cameras that issue civil citations to have LGF money reduced by the amount they collect from the fees.

The city was expecting to receive about $1.7 million in LGF money in 2020. But revenue from the speed cameras brought in $2,224,524.72 so it won’t get any LGF money this year.

Last year saw a tremendous spike in speed-camera revenue. The program brought in $1,363,671.97 in 2018.

The increase, Lees said, was to keep speed down primarily on Interstate 680 between South Avenue and Meridian Road, where the speed limit is 50 mph.

But it was also a cash cow for several police officers, including Rutherford and Awad.

CASH COW

Officers received $289,149 in overtime pay from the use of speed cameras — with the city paying $62,039.14 for its share of the officers’ pension and Medicare costs — compared to $104,171 in 2018. The speed-camera work was done by officers on overtime with all of the costs coming from those who paid the citation fees.

Of the $81,779.29 Awad received in overtime last year, $50,020.49 was for the speed-camera program, according to records from the city’s finance department.

Of the $82,558.82 Rutherford got in overtime in 2019, $42,626.41 was for speed cameras, the records show.

Awad also worked 1,079.85 hours of overtime and Rutherford put in 761.5 hours of overtime using speed cameras.

The two of them received 32 percent of the total speed-camera overtime.

“They chose to work that so they earned an exceptional amount last year and they’re ranking officers so they earn at a higher rate,” Lees said.

The chief added that he didn’t see “any change in their day-to-day efforts with fatigue” with the extra hours.

Three other ranking police officers who each made more than $30,000 in overtime last year got most of the money from speed-camera duty.

They are:

Detective Sgt. John C. Patton, who was No. 3 in the city with $55,790 in overtime with $27,462.86 from working 562 hours with the speed cameras.

Detective Sgt. Ramon Cox, who received the 21st most amount of overtime, $31,354.61 with $17,919.89 from working 320.55 hours with the speed cameras.

Lt. William B. Ross III, who received the 13th most overtime in the city with $38,747.55. Of that amount, Ross made $17,657.44 for 315.4 hours working the speed cameras. Ross is the head of the department’s accident investigation unit, which ran the speed-camera program.

Most of the overtime paid to Johnson, a patrol officer who had the fourth highest overtime payment last year, was “because we were short-staffed in the jail for women,” Lees said. “She picked up other shifts. We have so few female officers for the jail and had a female officer out so she filled in.”

Twenty-one city employees received more than $30,000 in overtime last year compared to only seven in 2018.

Rutherford was also No. 1 in 2018, making $45,080.60 in overtime.

Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said: “I don’t think overtime is out of hand. The numbers look a little skewed in 2019. We’ll work in 2020 to make sure it’s lower.”

Adding more police officers will lower overtime in that department this year, he said.

WASTEWATER OT

Besides the police, the department to see the biggest increase in overtime from 2018 to 2019 was wastewater.

The department went from $1,166,029.89 in overtime in 2018 to $1,824,877.84 last year — a 57 percent increase, just like police.

Robert F. Moran, a wastewater shift manager, had the most overtime in the department — and the fifth most among all city workers — with $47,737.32. Michael J. Lyon, a pretreatment administrative assistant, had the second most in the department — and No. 14 in the city overall — with $38,320.64; and Joseph Salreno, a shift manager, had the third most in the department — and No. 20 in the city — with $31,354.61.

A shift manager retired last year and wasn’t replaced resulting in Moran and Salreno picking up a lot of overtime, Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works, said.

“We budgeted overtime rather than add employees because it’s cheaper,” Shasho said. “We had to get the work done and some people were willing to work it. I’m not concerned that it’s two people.”

Lyon is the acting supervisor of the department’s collection system.

“We added another one (acting supervisor) and they’ll be able to split the time this year,” Shasho said.