NEW YORK — New York’s prison staffing crisis helped push correctional overtime spending sharply higher in 2025, with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision accounting for nearly half of all overtime pay statewide, according to a new report from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
State agencies spent more than $1.6 billion on overtime last year, a nearly 23% increase from 2024, according to WSKG. State employees logged nearly 26 million overtime hours, earning about $300 million more than they did the year before.
A large share of that increase came from DOCCS, where a combination of long-running staffing shortages and the 2025 wildcat corrections officer strike drove overtime costs even higher.
According to the report, DOCCS employees worked 8.7 million hours of overtime in 2025, totaling $709 million. That made up 44% of the state’s total overtime spending. Compared with 2024, overtime pay for the agency rose 58%, while overtime hours increased 17%.
The spike followed a three-week wildcat strike at New York’s 42 prisons in 2025. During that time, the state temporarily raised the overtime rate for correction officers to 2.5 times their regular pay. State workers are typically paid 1.5 times their regular rate for hours worked beyond a standard 40-hour week.
The strike, which was not officially sanctioned by the union, ended with more than 2,000 officers fired, deepening an already serious staffing problem.
DiNapoli’s report found the DOCCS workforce has dropped significantly over the past decade, falling from about 30,000 employees in 2016 to 20,000 last year. During that same period, 15 state prisons closed.
Even before the strike, overtime demands on correctional staff had been climbing. The report found average overtime hours per DOCCS employee rose from 220 in 2020 to 325 in 2024, then jumped to 432 in 2025, WSKG reports.
“These combined factors indicate that a smaller pool of corrections employees are working substantially more overtime hours to meet operational demands,” the report states.
Chris Summers, president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, said that the report reflects what officers have been dealing with for years.
“The comptroller’s findings come as no surprise given the ongoing staffing challenges facing our prisons,” Summers said in a statement provided to WSKG. He added that recruitment efforts have been “unsuccessful in addressing the staffing shortfall.”
“We have repeatedly stressed that the current system is unsustainable,” Summers said. “Our members are without a work-life balance due to mandated overtime, and many have opted to retire or resign as a result.”
DOCCS said it has seen a 155% increase in people taking the correction officer exam since launching its recruiting push, WSKG reports.
Outside the prison system, the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Mental Health reported the next-highest overtime totals, at $230 million and $201 million, respectively. The comptroller’s report noted that both agencies, like DOCCS, oversee institutional settings and have faced ongoing staffing challenges.
Overtime spending at the Office of Mental Health increased 14% from 2024, while the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities saw a 2% decrease.
