As a result, city officials are discussing a system that they hope could be more transparent and straightforward, as well as save money. However, some officials are worried that the change may not be for the better.
No action was taken on the policy at City Council’s Nov. 11 meeting, but officials kept the door open on potential action at a future meeting.
The overview
City Manager Trent Epperson said the issue of high overtime in part stems from how the city counts hours worked. Current city policy counts vacation and compensation time as hours worked, which then can be included in overtime pay. This is leading officials to consider whether those hours should count as overtime.
The issue is twofold, according to a presentation from the city. First, many employees, particularly those in public safety, are working excess hours. Second, those employees are then getting compensation time following long hours worked, which is adding to potential overtime.
An example given shows someone in the fire department taking off time, and someone else working a 24-hour overtime shift to cover them. That employee then gains 36 hours of compensation time and takes off all that time. To make up for it, other employees must work to make up that 36-hour gap, which earns them 54 total hours of compensation time, which then has to be made up by someone else, and so on.
Diving in deeper
Most city staff are on a standard 40-hour work week and 80 hours across two weeks, meaning anything over that counts as overtime, city documents show.
Police are scheduled for 84 hours over a 14-day period, with anything over 80 considered overtime, Epperson said. Fire department employees are currently on an 18-day schedule for 144 hours with anything over 136 hours considered overtime. As a result, overtime to a degree is already built into the plan.
City documents show updating the city’s overtime policy could save about 1% in payroll costs across all city departments, netting around $500,000. For fire and police alone, that savings could total around $400,000.
In paycheck examples shared by the city, entry level firefighters and officers would be paid more than they were last year even if vacation and compensation hours weren't factored in to overtime.
However, public safety employees at the top of the scale compared to last year could see a decrease in pay at some point depending on the amount of vacation and compensation time they take, documents show. Despite this, in both cases, the employees would still be paid more overall than they would be compared to working a normal schedule with no vacation taken.
What they said
Scott McReynolds, an officer with Pearland, said he was against not counting compensation time as overtime. He said taking it away incentivizes officers to work more hours to obtain that overtime rather than take the time off they need, which affects their performance.
“Life is not so simple as to schedule when one needs a day away from the job,” he said. “We’re out there 24 hours a day, seven days a week doing this. We’re not here nine to five. We need a break sometimes.”
Mayor Kevin Cole said the council had to also keep in mind the taxpayer, saying the city had to “thread a needle.”
While some council members said they were unsure if they felt the $500,000 in savings was worth cutting overtime, the majority of the board agreed with needing more time to understand the policy.
Remember this?
For fiscal year 2024-25, Pearland approved compensation increases for police and fire, as well as all employees, city documents show. The totals for each included:
- $1.26M in police pay plan
- $1.62M in fire pay plan
- 5% pay increase for other employees
Next steps
The city is in the process of reviewing its pay policies and could have an action item come up to vote on a change of the policy at a future meeting.
