Butler County employees worked roughly 32,000 hours of overtime in 2012.

The total cost to pay that overtime was $898,530, according to county payroll records.

County Controller Jack McMillin said that’s a significant amount.

“That represents a mill of tax,” he said. “By any standard, it’s a large number.”

However, McMillin said overtime is preferable to increasing staff, who carry benefit costs.

“Overtime is something that can be used to an employer’s advantage if properly monitored,” he said.

County Commissioner Bill McCarrier, board chairman, doesn’t view the overtime as excessive.

He pointed out McMillin can show how it is less costly than hiring new staff.

McCarrier said the row officers and department heads don’t abuse the practice.

“I think they’re doing the best they can do,” he said.

Commissioner Dale Pinkerton agreed: “I honestly believe every department is doing its best to control overtime.”

Commissioner Jim Eckstein said there are no overtime abuses that he’s aware of, but pointed out it has occurred in other local governments.

“We want to make sure it doesn’t happen in Butler County,” Eckstein said.

Of all county offices and departments, the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center had the most overtime with 12,651 hours at a cost of $322,574.

The largest portion, 10,987 hours, covers nursing staff including nurses aides.

Sunnyview administrator Sue Murray said the nursing home must follow state law by covering all shifts on a daily basis.

“You have to have a minimum number of people,” she said.

Pinkerton agreed: “If you don’t have enough staff, you have to shut it down.”

According to Sunnyview records, the nursing home cut overtime by nearly 3,000 hours, from 15,625 hours to 12,651 hours, from 2011 to 2012. The cost reduction was $388,423 to $322,574.

Although the county prison has the next highest amount of overtime recorded with more than 6,000 hours, that number includes shift work on holidays.

Under the union contract, correction officers are paid the same wage, time-and-a-half, for working holidays as they are for standard overtime.

Warden Rick Shaffer said the actual overtime excluding holidays was 1,274 hours.

While the cost for those hours was unavailable, the base overtime salary range is $31 to $36 an hour.

Shaffer said there is no way to eliminate overtime in a prison, where inmates are monitored 24 hours a day.

“We just can’t go without a pod officer,” he said.

Pinkerton, chairman of the prison board, agreed overtime is a necessity in the prison. “You have to have somebody there,” he said.

Shaffer pointed out the overtime was cut from 2011, when it totaled 2,120 hours.

He said work shifts were modified so training wasn’t being done as overtime.

Pinkerton lauded the decrease in overtime. “They reduced it considerably,” he said.

County emergency services logged in 3,940 hours of overtime at a cost of more than $118,409 in 2012.

Steve Bicehouse, county emergency services director, said overtime is minimized as much as possible. However, anytime a 911 dispatcher calls off, that shift must be filled.

“We have to fill that position,” Bicehouse said. “(People) want someone to answer the phone when they call 911.”

The office of Sheriff Mike Slupe had more than 2,700 hours of overtime at a cost of more than $77,750.

Slupe said inmate transports caused extra overtime.

For example, a female inmate had a complicated pregnancy so she spent much time at Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. A deputy was required to be with her the entire time she was outside the prison.

“That was around-the-clock coverage,” Slupe said.

He said most potential overtime is curbed by setting shifts around such planned work as court schedules.

“I did everything I could to control expenses,” Slupe said.

He focused some of those efforts to reduce overtime on scheduling coverage for the government center lobby, which has a security entrance.

“That was under my control,” Slupe said.

Extra expenses such as patrolling schools following a shooting in another state were reimbursed.

His office recouped money for providing security in the Karns City School District — $13,760 for roughly three months.

County facilities and operations ranked in the top five areas in overtime with roughly 2,300 hours or roughly $56,870.

Amy Wilson, chief county clerk, said that department logs overtime dealing with weather conditions such as snow removal and covering special events using Diamond Park.

Not all overtime costs are paid for by the county.

According to county personnel department records, government grants covered 302 hours, or $9,205, and the state liquid fuel fund covered 206 hours, or $6,298.

Another 48 hours, or $1,399, was reimbursed by the state for the special election held for former state Sen. Jane Orie’s seat.

When requested to provide 2012 overtime hours for this story, the county generated a list of employees to derive individual numbers needing to be totaled.

The list of employees’ overtime could be categorized by row office or department, but doesn’t account for workers who switched to different areas of county government.

In such cases, the hours are assigned to the employee’s current office or department, not the one in which the overtime was accrued in 2012.

Wilson said the county doesn’t automatically collate overtime by office or department.

Overtime hours listed on payroll records were acquired through the personnel office. There is no common database for all areas of county government to review overtime.

Eckstein said there should be such a central database.

Wilson said there was not necessarily a need to compile the information by department in the past.

“It doesn’t mean there’s an omission or deficiency of some kind in the system,” she said.

Pinkerton agreed, saying there’s no reason to set up a central database separating overtime by department.

“I don’t know that we need that,” he said.

Pinkerton said it’s not important how the data is retrieved, just that it can be done.

McCarrier pointed out the commissioners receive monthly reports on overtime hours for each department and row office.

“To me, that’s sufficient,” he said.

Those monthly reports don’t include the corresponding overtime costs.