Council Committees to Discuss Overtime Report

The Montgomery County Council’s Government Operations (GO) Committee and its Public Safety Committee at 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 14, will hold a worksession on an Office of Legislative Oversight report reviewing work hours, leave use and overtime hours of Montgomery County Government Executive Branch employees.

The GO Committee, which is chaired by Nancy Floreen and includes Councilmembers Valerie Ervin and Hans Riemer, and the Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by Phil Andrews and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Marc Elrich, will meet in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building, which is located at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The meeting can be viewed live via streaming through the County web site at www.montgomerycountymd.gov. It will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM—Cable Channel 6 on Comcast and RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon).

The Council requested the Legislative Branch’s Office of Legislative Oversight to compile the study in order to quantify how often County Government employees are present at their jobs. The results will allow the Council to better understand how attendance impacts both the use of overtime and the required total size of the County’s workforce. The report offers recommendations on tracking and managing employee time and leave use.

The report showed that Executive Branch employees worked approximately 1 million overtime hours in the 18-month period studied from Jan. 2, 2011, through June 30, 2012. Departments with minimum staffing requirements accounted for approximately 90 percent of the overtime. Montgomery Fire and Rescue employees accounted for 34 percent, while Department of Transportation employees and Montgomery County Police accounted for 23 percent each.

On average, employees worked one overtime hour for every 11 hours worked. The report showed that 260 employees (5 percent) logged more than 1,000 hours each in overtime.

The report found that approximately 9 percent of all overtime hours (132,000 hours) were logged in pay periods when an employee worked half or fewer of their regular hours (i.e. in pay period where they accounted for some of their regularly scheduled hours with some type of approved leave).

At 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room, the Public Safety Committee will receive an update on planned future projects of the County Fire and Rescue Service. The worksession will include updates on the relocations of Glenmont Fire Station No. 18 and the Wheaton Rescue Squad Station. The committee also will be briefed on the progress of the planned Travilah Fire Station No. 32 and the relocation of Public Safety Headquarters to the County-owned facility at the former Edison Tech Park in Gaithersburg.

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