Police at OSU paid more than $1M in overtime

Sixteen officers earned more than $100K each.

ENLARGE PHOTO

2010 payroll for The Ohio State University

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By Josh Sweigart and Christopher Magan
Staff Writers Updated 12:39 PM Monday, September 26, 2011

Two Ohio State University police officers worked so many extra shifts in 2010 that their overtime pay was thousands more than their base salaries, pushing their total compensation over $165,000 each, a Dayton Daily News investigation found.

An analysis of university payroll records found overtime shifts are so plentiful that 16 officers earned more than $100,000 last year, with five officers making more than Chief Paul S. Denton.

> Search OSU's payroll database

The two top officers, Richard A. Green and Thomas A.  Schneider, each took in more than $84,000 in overtime last year.

The overtime numbers “horrified” state Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, who chairs the state education committee and is a non-voting member of the Ohio Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public universities.

“This does not sound appropriate, and it sounds wasteful on the surface,” Lehner said. “It sounds to me like you could hire additional police officers at less expense.”

The OSU police department’s 53 supervisors and officers earned more than $1 million in overtime in 2010 out of a total payroll of $4.9 million, the Daily News found.

More than half came from working special events and is reimbursed by other agencies, police officials say, but the figure was unrivaled by any southwest Ohio university.

Chief Denton defended the amount of overtime pay, saying it was not unlike other Ohio police departments. OSU is a “city within a city” with 100,000 students, faculty and visitors, a hospital, major sporting events, campus-wide construction and even a nuclear reactor to secure.

“We are one of the largest campuses in the country,” he said. “We are a flat organization and a lean organization.”

OSU police staffing is less than 1 officer per 1,000 students, under the 1.5 officers per 1,000 student national average for universities with more than 15,000 students, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. OSU officers can work as many as 119 hours a week as long as they take seven hours off between shifts and work no longer than 17 hours at a time, as stipulated by their union contract.

Jim Gilbert, Capital City Fraternal Order of Police president, said it was unusual for police officers to earn more in overtime than in base pay. Gilbert’s organization represents 28 departments, including OSU police.

He said he had no objections to a few officers earning extra money working extra hours in one year, but “it’s impossible for somebody to have the ability to sustain (that amount of work).”

“We’d love to see more officers hired,” Gilbert said.

Denton would also like to hire more officers, but said in tight fiscal times for state universities, it’s more cost-effective to use overtime rather than hire more employees who receive training, vacation and other benefits. “If I need officers, we need to justify that,” he said.

‘Believe me, they’re earning their money’

OSU has so many overtime opportunities that the university often hires other departments, including Columbus police and Ohio Highway Patrol, to bridge the gap, Denton said.

Much of the overtime is needed for special events, including football games and large concerts that use campus venues, Denton said. Costs for those events are passed on to event organizers and ticket holders, so “no public money” is used, Denton said.

Denton said the school bills organizations more than $2 million a year for security at events, and he estimates about half a million of that goes to his officers.

Then there’s unexpected overtime: $7,400 for police to be at a late-night student jump into Mirror Lake that drew thousands, $25,000 for a presidential visit and $17,000 for a bomb threat.

That averages between $25,000 and $45,000 a month, he said. OSU officers worked 14,000 overtime hours for special events last year; Columbus police worked 17,000 hours on the campus, too. With so much construction on campus needing extra patrols and traffic assistance, Denton said his officers’ overtime roughly doubled from 2009.

“There’s no question that they earned and worked for what they earned,” Denton said. “If we thought anyone’s work performance was affected by that, absolutely we would take action.”

Added Chief Deputy Richard D. Morman: “Some of these high earners you look at, these are officers who are willing to work jobs nobody else wants to work. Believe me, they’re earning their money.”

The Daily News requested interviews with the top overtime-earning officers at OSU through their union, and did not receive any response. Overtime pay can increase pension payouts after retirement. The top five overtime earners at OSU police have between two and 22 years experience. Denton said overtime shifts are awarded to the volunteer who worked the least amount of overtime hours when more than one officer volunteers for a shift.

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Highest paid OSU police officers in 2010

Name	Job title	Base salary*	Overtime pay	Gross pay
Richard A. Green	Officer supervisor	$81,619	$84,458	$166,077
Thomas A. Schneider	Officer	$72,010	$92,840	$165,694
Steven S. Holbert	Officer	$72,010	$54,802	$127,471
Michael E. Neff	Officer	$70,970	$51,840	$123,410
Andrew P. West	Officer supervisor	$82,659	$38,019	$121,666
Paul S. Denton	Chief of police	$119,952		$118,438