A new policy in the Town of Bethlehem will limit the amount of overtime employees work with outside vendors.
The policy was enacted on Wednesday, July 2, following a vote from the Bethlehem Town Board. The change will not save the town any money, but is meant to comply with state regulation and save New York taxpayers money by no longer counting those hours in the accrued time of employee pensions.
Town Supervisor John Clarkson said the policy impacts the town’s police department the most, since officers sometime work overtime at outside events for security purposes. The outside vendor then pays back the town for salary and benefits, but the town had been counting the overtime hours toward employee pensions.
“I called the state and they said we weren’t supposed to count it, so I said we wouldn’t do it any more,” said Clarkson.
The supervisor said the issue first came to his attention after a local business had construction equipment stolen off their lot, and officers were paid overtime to work security to prevent additional thefts. The company paid the town about $71,000 for the overtime and benefits, which was one of the largest overtime payments from an outside vendor the town had seen.
Human Resources Director Mary Tremblay-Glassman called the situation “an anomaly.” She said most outside vendor overtime with is with the school district or police working community events. However, it did lead them to ask questions.
Tremblay-Glassman said their concerns were confirmed after having a meeting with the Town of Guilderland officials this year. Guilderland had a lot of outside vendor overtime, but records it as separate line items. When Tremblay-Glassman asked why, that’s when Bethlehem officials called the state.
Clarkson said under the new policy, police can still work overtime for with the school district and have those hours count towards their pension because it’s all public work. All other outside work will be limited.
“We spoke with the unions, and they agreed to the policy change as long as they could still work the road races,” said Clarkson.
Tremblay-Glassman said its a requirement that road races can only be held if police work as security. The town agreed to pay the money so police could continue to work those events, which only costs about $7,000 a year.
The policy states “that private duty overtime should be avoided.”
“It is also the policy of the Town of Bethlehem that all work assigned by the Police Department should be eligible for pension credit and therefore the town will make efforts to avoid assigning overtime that may be deemed by the State Comptroller’s Office to be ineligible for pension credit,” it reads.
Councilwoman Joann Dawson said she was concerned the new policy would take away the police chief’s ability to respond to issues of public safety. The Board said that would not be the case, because anything deemed a safety issue would be deemed a matter for the police to handle and be paid by the town.
A new line was added to stipulate the policy “is not intended to limit the discretion of the chief of police or police department in discharging the police department’s normal public safety or community policing functions.”
Councilman Jeffrey Kuhn said he was happy with the new policy because he was unaware private companies sometimes paid police officers for overtime work.
“They should really be hiring their own security if it’s needed,” he said.