Last year was the first year that high-ranking appointees in the Erie County Sheriff’s Office were prohibited – along with all other top-ranking county appointees – from receiving overtime. But Sheriff’s Office appointees still made the most of a provision allowing them to collect overtime pay for working on holidays.
More than half of them collected at least twice as much holiday pay in 2023 than in 2022.
County legislators are now deliberating a resolution to put a stop to that. The resolution directs the county personnel commissioner to set uniform policies regarding personnel compensation for all employees, including all nonunion, salaried appointees. The resolution explicitly states that any employee not entitled to regular overtime pay is also not entitled to receive time-and-a-half for working on holidays.
Currently, Sheriff’s Office appointees receive worked-holiday pay on top of their regular paid holiday time, similar to union employees.
Sheriff John Garcia said that if the County Legislature directs that his top administrators should not receive overtime for working on holidays, he’ll abide by that.
He also said his office has been playing by the rules from the beginning and that the reason his top administrators received holiday-related overtime pay this past year is because Personnel Commissioner Brian Bray agreed it was permissible in January 2023 after conferring with John Greenan, the sheriff’s chief of administration.
“That’s what makes me frustrated,” he said. “Those were the rules. We didn’t do anything underhanded.”
County Executive Mark Poloncarz said he had agreed that holiday-related overtime pay was allowable but was concerned to learn that sheriff’s appointees were putting in for holiday pay for things like marching in parades.
“The problem is the abuse,” he said.
Garcia and Undersheriff William Cooley said no one is putting in holiday-related overtime pay for marching in parades and that any…
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