By Mike Ward
The Austin American-Statesman
AUSTIN, Texas — Overtime pay is OK again at the Texas Youth Commission.
On Tuesday, the agency announced that employees will start being paid for their overtime hours, effective immediately.
Extra hours worked during the past month since overtime pay was suspended will be paid in a special check to be issued by mid-December, agency officials said in a statement.
Acting Executive Director Dimitria Pope suspended overtime payments in October after top Youth Commission officials were shocked to learn that the agency had used most of its annual overtime budget in just two months. At the time, agency officials said that they could not properly track overtime payments and that they were investigating why so many extra hours had been logged.
The move angered many employees, who questioned why Pope and other Austin officials were so surprised by the cost, considering chronic understaffing in Youth Commission lockups in many parts of the state.
In the statement, the agency attributed that large overtime bill to “the shortage of juvenile corrections officers at numerous TYC facilities. " Another factor was the lack of a uniform staff schedule throughout the institutions.”
Pope said that a uniform staffing plan will be completed by early January to ensure that all overtime worked is evenly distributed among staff and to “develop strategies to work overtime more efficiently and consistently given the realities of current staff shortages.”
The cost of overtime during the period it was suspended: $1.4 million, about what it was in the previous month.
The statement said that pay for all the extra overtime will come from money budgeted for staff positions that are vacant.
The agency had about 2,200 guards in October. Officials could not provide numbers of vacancies Tuesday evening.
Copyright 2007 Austin American-Statesman