Free Republic

Beefed-up security came with a hefty price tag at the murder trial of ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. The Minnesota city’s police department chalked up $2.9 million in overtime during the high-profile trial, which led to Chauvin’s conviction on murder charges, Fox affiliate KMSP-TV reported. The revelation came as Minneapolis police asked the city council at a Wednesday night hearing for $5 million in additional funding to offset spiraling costs, KMSP said.

The U.S. Postal Service has racked up billions of dollars in excessive overtime from its workers over the last several years, even as its employee numbers have gone up and its mail delivery has declined, according to a new audit likely to raise questions about congressional Democrats' demands for a bailout. Overtime pay has become so predominant at America's premier mail delivery service that more than 4,000 postal workers last year actually earned more in OT pay than their base pay, a 429% increase in highly compensated overtime earners since 2014, the agency's internal watchdog reported this week. "A mail...

An LAPD officer told Breitbart News, “Guys and gals are beyond pissed…. many are actively looking to quit and go to another department. Some in, and some out of state.”

A Long Island Rail Road worker who raked in more than $280,000 in pay last year — more than half from overtime — was busted hanging out at home while on the clock, according to a report obtained by The Post. But he was allowed to retire before he could be punished — and collect his full pension on the public dime. Raymond Murphy, a foreman with the LIRR’s Buildings and Bridges department who’d been at the agency since 1996, was caught by the MTA’s Inspector General at or near his home on 10 occasions when he was on duty...

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have subpoenaed pay records for a recently retired Long Island Rail Road official who has emerged as the MTA reigning overtime king — as well as more than a dozen other workers at the LIRR and New York City Transit, according to a new report. Thomas Caputo, who retired recently as the LIRR’s chief measurement operator, raked in $344,147 in overtime for 2018 by logging 3,864 extra hours — bringing his total take to $461,646, according to data from the Empire Center. The watchdog group also found that one LIRR track worker, Marco Pazmino, more than...

​”​This is about stealing. This is about fraud. This is about people saying they work and charging the taxpayers when they didn’t work. It’s stealing. It’s criminal​,” the governor said during a news conference at his midtown Manhattan office. “​So this has nothing to do with overtime. It has to do with theft and fraud, and that’s criminal.​”​ ...Recently retired LIRR employee Thomas Caputo claimed he worked an additional 3,864 hours to rake in $344,147 in overtime pay in 2018 for a grand paycheck of $461,646, according to the Empire Center. Another LIRR worker, Marco Pazmino, put in for 4,157...

Riders get slapped with fare hikes — while these guys ride the gravy train. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s top earner last year raked in a budget-busting $344,147 in overtime — on top of his $117,499 salary, according to data released Tuesday by the Empire Center fiscal-watchdog group. While delays on the Long Island Rail Road hit a 19-year high in 2018, chief measurement operator Thomas Caputo brought home a fat $461,646 paycheck — more than anyone else at the agency, and $164,027 more than he earned the year before. And yet the MTA couldn’t even explain how many hours Caputo...

Need a career change? NJ Transit is hiring — and the job comes with big bucks. The nation’s second-busiest rail system has been struggling to keep its trains running on time, sometimes canceling as many as two dozen a day. Officials blame this commuting nightmare in part on a lack of engineers — the people who operate the trains. The shortage is exacerbated whenever a slew of engineers call out sick. The agency has been scrambling to fill training classes with recruits. Prospective job applicants might jump at the opportunity when they find out just how much the job pays....

A Metra track inspector and two mechanics have been paid a total of $1.2 million in overtime in the past five years. That payout, one lawmaker tells 2 Investigator Brad Edward, is out of control. “There’s excessive overtime being paid,” says State Rep. David Olsen (R-Downers Grove). “That creates mistrust from taxpayers.” In all, Metra’s overtime costs soared above $119 million from 2013 to 2017, according to interviews and records. 2 Investigators counted 351 employees who earned at least $100,000 in that span. Topping the list is a mechanic who earned more than $366,000 in overtime. “I think that …...

As BART’s ridership surged three years ago, along with the number of homeless people lingering inside its downtown San Francisco stations, the transit system doubled down on custodial work — and some of its janitors started cleaning up paywise. One system service worker, BART’s title for janitors, made a little more than $271,000 in 2015, with $162,050 of that in overtime. A year later, two other BART janitors joined him in collecting more than $100,000 in overtime pay in a year. Three years later — after the tale of the high-earning BART janitor became legend and the transit system, and...

ALBANY — An upstate prison nurse raked in a state-leading $153,708 in overtime in 2017, the Daily News has learned. With the overtime on top of her base $63,293 salary, Janet Johnson, a nurse at Franklin Correctional Facility, received $217,000 in pay in 2017, according to records provided by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli’s office. Johnson, who could not be reached for comment, worked 2,445.5 hours of overtime last year. That would mean if her regular work hours are factored in, Johnson put in an average of 12 hours a day if she worked every day for a full year. And...

YAY! :) This was the only event I've watched in full so far at the Olympics and it was SOOOOOOOOO WORTH IT! Went to overtime and then they won in the shootout.

A federal judge in Texas has made permanent an earlier finding that the Obama administration overstepped its bounds by extending overtime pay to 4.2 million workers. U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant in November had issued a preliminary injunction blocking the mandate from the U.S. Labor Department. He struck down the mandate in a permanent order issued Aug. 31. The rule change would have extended overtime protection to salaried employees making less than $47,476 a year. The proposal had employers in a range of industries, including restaurants, scrambling to decide whether to raise the salaries of affected employees to the new...

The various media pundits and news stories are calling H.R. 1180 a “new overtime bill”. However, in reality the ‘take pay or take time off’ concept is more than 50 years old; we used to call it “compensatory time” or “comp time”...... The basic principle can be awesome for employees for a variety of reasons. However, few young workers today have an understanding of how it works. Say you work 60 hours in a week. If ‘compensatory time’ options are available you can take your standard 40 hour paycheck and defer the 20 overtime hours to future time off at...

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez learned a harsh lesson this month. Public servants at federal agencies cannot allow their political preferences to guide their regulatory agenda. Rather, they must fulfill the mission of the agency as Congress intended. The folks over at the Department of Labor (DOL) do not seem to comprehend that. Once again, a court has issued an injunction against a DOL regulation. This time it was President Obama’s signature overtime rule, finalized on May 23, 2016, which would more than double the salary threshold for overtime eligible employees from $23,660 to $47,892. On November 22, 2016, Judge Amos...

Time’s running out on the Obama administration and its ability to extend its regulatory adventurism, an end emphasized by a federal judge in Texas yesterday — or at least a pause. Twenty-one states sued the Department of Labor over new rules that would have extended overtime pay to around four million salaried Americans, and Judge Amos Mazzant issued a temporary injunction to keep it from being enforced as planned on December 1st: (video at link) A Texas judge ruled Tuesday to put the brakes on federal rules that would have expanded overtime pay to more than 4 million workers. A...

Baton Rouge police and the sheriff's office spent a total $1.6 million on overtime pay in July responding to protests that followed the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by a police officer and a subsequent attack on law enforcement in which three officers were killed. The federal government is picking up more than half of the bill. Most of the money was spent by the police department, which shelled out $1.5 million in overtime pay in July. The sheriff's office spent close to $102,000 on overtime, according to a report from the Louisiana legislative fiscal office. In total, Baton Rouge...

Texas and 20 other states have announced a lawsuit to block the Obama administration’s destructive overtime rules, which are slated to go into effect December 1, 2016. With less than 3-months to spare, victory in the case would save businesses and workers across the U.S. from this dehumanizing and economically damaging law. According to the new rule, salaried workers earning below $47,476 per year must be paid time-and-a-half for work done in excess of forty hours per week. This is up from a previous salary threshold of $23,660. The rule promises more pay for working long hours, more money for...

resident Barack Obama is doing anything but closing out his lame duck term quietly. On the contrary he’s doing yet another end run around both the U.S. Congress and all 50 states that would impose another mandate that will cost money and jobs, possibly forcing states to raise taxes as well. Twenty-one states have filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Sherman, Texas, to stop him. Hours after the states filed their lawsuit, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups filed a similar lawsuit with the same federal court. Obama’s new mandate would force employers in...

A coalition of 21 states sued the U.S. Department of Labor Tuesday over a new rule that would make about 4 million higher-earning workers eligible for overtime pay, slamming the measure as inappropriate federal overreach from the Obama Administration. Republican Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas, urging it to block implementation before the regulation takes effect on Dec. 1. Laxalt, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama’s policies, said the rule would burden private and public sectors by straining budgets and forcing layoffs or cuts in working hours. “This rule, pushed...