Staff at HYCF rack up $1M-plus in overtime

Staff at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in Kailua continues to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay annually even though the number of inmates at the facility has dropped to just 23 youths, down from 80 to 90 several years ago.

The generous overtime has allowed 14 corrections officers and supervisors and one human services professional at the jail to earn six-figure salaries and accumulate weeks of paid time off, according to documents submitted by the Department of Human Services, which oversees the facility, for a legislative budget briefing on Wednesday.

Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Ways and Means Committee, scolded leaders of the juvenile jail for poor management and questionable spending.

“What is the issue here that we’ve got less people to take care of, kids to take care of, and you have a million dollars in overtime and you are still projecting a million dollars in overtime for the next year?” she said.

The Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility paid out a total of $1.17 million in overtime for fiscal year 2015 and estimates that it will pay out $1.13 million in overtime for fiscal year 2016. For the upcoming fiscal year beginning in July, management projects that a little over $1 million will also be paid out.

In the 2015 fiscal year, nearly four dozen corrections officers and supervisors earned overtime, many boosting their base pay by more than 30 percent, according to budget documents.

For instance, one corrections officer earned a base salary of $93,842 that year. The officer worked the equivalent of about 36 extra hours a week in overtime throughout the year, according to DHS, earning an extra $43,895 in overtime and 12 weeks of comp time.

Also earning overtime at the facility that year were a groundskeeper, auto mechanic, farm manager, nurse, maintenance supervisor and cooks. The farm manager boosted his base pay by 37 percent, earning a total of about $54,000, and accumulating four weeks of comp time.

Mark Patterson, HYCF’s administrator, said there were multiple reasons for the overtime, including “labor issues and workers compensation and things of that nature that normally cause the vacancies,” which result in others filling in work shifts.

“There are also other special considerations,” he said. “Whenever our children harm themselves, there is additional staffing that we have to put on a child 24 hours to make sure that they don’t hurt themselves.”

Still, he said the department is working to reduce the overtime.

“We are doing better than we have in the past and continue to work toward improving our overtime,” he said. “I think we are going to be a little bit more successful in the future.”

In recent years, policymakers have successfully reduced the population at the facility to adolescents who have committed serious crimes and who pose a risk to public safety. In the past, children have been locked up for minor offenses, including youth that need treatment for trauma, mental illness or drug addiction.

Patterson noted that the reduction in inmates means that HYCF needs to rethink its strategic plan to justify its workforce.

“I have asked this question to myself when I first started: When I come to you folks, how do I justify a hundred employees to 23 children?” he said. “So we continue to work at how are we going to expand the role of HYCF in the criminal justice system that is going to justify our numbers.”

He said HYCF is looking at re-energizing its vocational training programs in farming and ranching, as well as considering expanding services for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

Tokuda (D, Kailua-­Kaneohe) said she understood that there needs to be a strategic shift for HYCF, but that doesn’t address the issue of the overtime pay.

“You need better management right now because you are bleeding out $1 million for your program,” she said. “Something has got to change right now. This is not doing a service for DHS or for the Office of Youth Services. It’s not helping our kids. … One million dollars off of you means a million dollars less somewhere else in this budget, whether it is for DHS or some other department. That’s tough choices that everyone sitting in this room and in this building have to make. If we pay $1 million for your overtime, someone is not going to get it. That’s the harsh reality. Do we understand that?”

Patterson responded: “Yes — clearly.”

MAKING SOME MONEY

The top five overtime pay recipients at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in fiscal 2015:

Source: Department of Human Services