Halifax staff overtime pay exceeded $12.2M last year

Overtime costs for the city of Halifax exceeded $12.2 million last year, including six employees who each worked more than 1,000 hours of overtime.

Documents obtained by CBC News through a routine disclosure request show a financial break down by departmentbetween January 2014 and December 2014.

Two departments accounted for most of the overages last year. Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency staff earned $3.7 million in overtime; Halifax Transit employees earned $5.4 million on top of their base salaries.

Tiffany Chase, a spokesperson for the Halifax Regional Municipality, said Halifax Transit budgets for overtime to cover unexpected gaps in the system.

"Overtime costs are planned for during the annual budget and business planning cycle, and in recent years, planned overtime has been closely aligned with actual overtime expenditures," she wrote in an email.

However, Chase said, overtime is a fact of life.

"Overtime is an requirement to deliver bus and ferry services as we must provide the scheduled services expected by our passengers, in spite of any operational issues, such as unplanned employee absences," she said.

Check out a chart of HRM overtime costs by department.

The financial statement is broken down by individual staff members, however names have been withheld.

Balance between OT, costs for new employees

One employee with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency worked 1,525 hours of overtime and was paid $69,876 more than their base salary.

"If you're in a position to be offered overtime and say yes every time, technically you could be working 24 hours on, 24 hours off, 24 hours on, 24 hours off," said deputy fire chief Roy Hollett.

"You could do this over a four- to six-month period and that way the hours add up very quickly."

Hollett said it's a balance between overtime and the costs associated with adding new employees.

"If we were to hire a full-time position to offset some of the overtime, in addition to the salary, we also have to put in place the cost of benefits and the pension. So you can add up to 24 per cent of extra cost," he said.

308,047 total hours of overtime

Six employees worked more than 1,000 hours of overtime in 2014. Five were employees with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, while one worked for Halifax Transit.

In all, city employees worked 308,047 hours of overtime last year.

One department not included in the total 2014 overtime tally is the Halifax Regional Police. According to figures provided on Wednesday, the police force budgeted $2.6 million in overtime for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. The final cost was $3million.

Using this information from police, Halifax's total overtime cost for 2014 is estimated to fall within the range identified as a concern in a 2011report from Auditor General Larry Monroe.

Munroe studied the city's finance's between 2007 and 2010 and found that overtime totalled between $12 millionand $15 million.

In his report, Monroe recommended that the city take action to study and reduce its overtime costs.