Thursday, the Clark County School Board will consider a regulation designed to cut the district's overtime costs, prompted in part by an I-Team investigation of one employee who in 2007 nearly doubled his salary in overtime and call-back pay.
Bill Wiseman works for the district's security systems department. It has 21 employees who maintain the thousands of security cameras and alarm systems on district property. Together last year, the employees collected more than $250,000 in call-back and overtime pay, and Wiseman was not the top earner by a long shot.
The CCSD's own surveillance cameras gave the first glimpse inside its security systems department. But in recent months, the I-Team has learned more about its inner workings from plain old paper than it has from hours of digital downloads.
Check out the pay logs
Payroll records for its 21 employees reveal large amounts of overtime and call-back pay for a third of the staff. Like Technology Specialist Christopher Borg, who logged more than 1,000 of overtime last year at a cost of more than $43,000.
"I question the amount and why was there not a more efficient alternative developed, if in fact there is a more efficient alternative," said Superintendent Walt Rulffes.
Faced with massive budget cuts, Rulffes wants to account for every penny. A district review found its support staff, to include school police, maintenance and facilities workers, earned more than $14.6 million in overtime last year.
Ruffles maintains his commitment to school safety, but questions why a third of the security systems department earned an extra $30,000 or more each in overtime and call-back pay.
"Do I think that overtime was excessive? Yes I do. If that's what you want to hear, I believe that's the case. I think there should've been other arrangements made to accommodate the need that's been out there or at least considered other than overtime," said Rulffes.
In defense of its OT, the department points to the launch of a new life-safety monitoring system, after-hours training for school employees and an overall increase in demand without additional staff.
Rulffes acknowledges all departments must now do more with less, but expects a new policy will limit overtime spending and increase accountability district-wide.
"I'm not going to apologize for overtime. I am going to pledge that we will monitor overtime and when it is excessive or when there are more efficient alternatives, we will pursue those," he said.
Rulffes points out that overtime is often cheaper than adding a full-time employee with benefits.
Among the provisions up for debate at Thursday's board meeting are capping overtime at 24 hours per employee, per week unless there's an emergency and requiring quarterly monitoring of all departments.
The board is expected to approve the policy.
The CCSD's own surveillance cameras gave the first glimpse inside its security systems department.
