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* From the Illinois Auditor General’s report on the Department of Corrections 2022-2024…
Department of Corrections (Department) allowed employees to use leave time (i.e., sick, vacation, personal leave, and accumulated holiday time) for their regular shift and then work another shift at an overtime rate on the same day. While there may be instances where this would be a needed solution to a difficult staff coverage scenario, it could be a sign of abuse of overtime and may be against Department policy.
According to the Department, for Fiscal Year 2024 through June 30, 2024, there was a total of 2,958,142 hours of overtime paid at a cost of $151,734,099. Stateville Correctional Center reported 393,832 hours of overtime at a cost of $21,829,406, the highest amount of overtime of any correctional facility. The facility with the next highest amount of overtime was the Dixon Correctional Center with 210,329 hours of overtime at a cost of $10,977,269. We reviewed overtime payments for 20 employees. We selected 10 employees at the Stateville Correctional Center and 10 employees at the Dixon Correctional Center who had the highest amount of overtime paid. As part of our review, we obtained employee annual timesheets and payroll reports. In our review of these 20 employee timesheets, 16 employees (80%) had used a full day of benefit time at least once during the fiscal year on the same day they had worked an overtime shift. For these 16 employees, we identified a total of 150 instances for the two years ended June 30, 2024, in which employees used a full day of leave time (7.5 hours) the same day that they also worked overtime. The instances per employee ranged from 1 to 30 instances during Fiscal Year 2023 and Fiscal Year 2024.
We requested any union agreements that allow overtime pay on the same day that leave time is taken; however, the Department could not provide any union agreements which did so.
The Department’s Overtime Equalization Training Manual requires the Department to not consider employees on benefit time for Master Overtime Equalization if the overtime is occurring during the time of the employee’s absence. This finding was first noted during the Department’s Fiscal Year 2014 State compliance examination, ten years ago. As such, Department management has been unsuccessful in implementing a corrective action plan to remedy this deficiency. The Department’s management team is responsible for implementing timely corrective action on all of the findings identified during a State compliance examination. […]
DEPARTMENT RESPONSE
o Recommendation implemented.
o The Department follows the policy listed in the finding by not allowing employees to work overtime on the same shift for which benefit time was used, since the overtime would occur during their absence.
o The Department plans to revise the Overtime Equalization Manual to explicitly state the circumstances where the policy applies.
Not great management there.
* The Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner asked the governor about the report at an unrelated news conference…
Gorner: The Illinois Auditor General released a report today showing that Illinois Department corrections, among other things in the audit, were allowed to work overtime on the same day as they were on paid leave, raising concerns by the auditor general that prison employees were abusing overtime. It’s not the first time the Auditor General has raised overtime related issues with agencies under your leadership, what’s your reaction to this new audit, and what’s your administration doing to remedy the problem?
Pritzker: Well, I haven’t seen this audit, let me say that right up front. But let me also point out that, as you know, these audits are a year or two old when they come out. And you may recall that a couple years ago, every industry was having trouble hiring because there was a labor shortage, including all the departments of the state of Illinois. We’ve rectified that to a greater degree. We’ve hired quite a number of people. I think you’ve seen us announce that. But look, number one is we want our correctional officers to be safe. We want to have enough correctional officers at any given moment that are covering the prisons and all their duties. And so I guess it may be that there was overtime- or that there was some observation by the auditor general that too much money went to the correctional officers. But I have to say they do an amazing job, and we don’t want to cross any of the rules of hiring, but we also want to make sure that we’ve got enough people on the job to do the job when we need them.
Needs a better response.
(Isabel Miller contributed to this post.)
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 2:33 pm
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One of the most loathed terms of the Rauner proposed AFSCME contract was no overtime pay before 37.5 hours of actual work time. Honeybear led quit the Jihad against that idea here daily.
Comment by Brave New World Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 3:38 pm
Example: c/o assigned to 3-11 has a school function to attend uses Comp. Time. 7-3 shift is 10 short. Volunteers to come in work 7-3 rather to mandate an 11-7 c/o(3 rd time in a week) no overtime needed on 3-11 by use on benefit time. Still have overtime no mater what. So let’s use someone that wants to work rather then someone who may be overworked due to shortage.
Comment by Nonsense Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 4:01 pm
= I haven’t seen this audit… = and a promise to follow up would’ve done the trick.
Comment by Dirty Red Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 4:02 pm
==The Department’s management team is responsible for implementing timely corrective action on all of the findings identified during a State compliance examination. ==
If an agency disagrees with a finding they aren’t going to implement any corrective action. I know we’ve disagreed with a few findings.
Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 4:35 pm
Reading is fundamental, folks.
Dept. of Corrections:
=== The Department follows the policy listed in the finding by not allowing employees to work overtime ON THE SAME SHIFT ===
Audit:
=== Department of Corrections allowed employees to use leave time for their regular shift and then work another shift at an overtime rate ON THE SAME DAY. ===
I am not sure from that whether the Dept. is being defiant or acknowledging they have not been doing what they are supposed to.
And then there is this:
=== The Department plans to revise the Overtime Equalization Manual ===
Okay, are you revising it to say that leave time is not eligible for overtime, or to keep doing what you are doing but make it legal?
because benefit time is not eligible for overtime.
If you work four days, take a sick day on friday, and then you go in to work Friday night or over the weekend for a shift, you do not get overtime pay. What you get — or should get — is your sick time back.
Otherwise, you could have five guys in a department, each taking a different sick day each week, each picking up a shift the other guy dropped, and effectively swapping sick days for overtime days with each other.
I am not saying that is what’s happening. I am saying if I can figure out in five minutes how easy it is to manipulate the system, a bunch of guys on the inside of the system have surely figured it out.
Comment by Juvenal Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 5:02 pm
=== For these 16 employees, we identified a total of 150 instances for the two years ended June 30, 2024, in which employees used a full day of leave time (7.5 hours) the same day that they also worked overtime. ===
I definitely am not the only one who has figured out how easy it is to game the system.
My buddy works First shift, I work second shift.
We both take a vacation day on Friday. Then I volunteer to cover his shift, he covers mine.
We spent 8 hours of vacation time, we got 12 hours of pay.
You can do the same thing with different days in the same pay period.
Comment by Juvenal Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 5:10 pm
===Not great management there.===
I really shouldn’t chortle at this.
===we also want to make sure that we’ve got enough people on the job to do the job when we need them. ===
If someone has a vacation day scheduled and then they’re willing to come into work that evening to volunteer for an extra shift I don’t think I would be opposed to someone receiving overtime pay for that shift.
Someone needs to take an afternoon off to go to the doctor’s office and now they can’t work overtime?
What’s the alternative? Hope the employee wants to come in and work outside of their regular hours at their regular pay? Hope there’s another volunteer? Mandate someone who doesn’t want to be there to force them to work the day?
The nearly 152 million dollars in overtime isn’t being caused by abuse, it is being caused by staffing issues.
Someone’s got to be there. If it isn’t the person that used benefit time then it will be someone else.
Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 5:46 pm
== Not great management there.==
Agreed. The part of this most people don’t understand is many employees close to retirement do this to pad their salaries for pensions. Many correctional officers will have six figure pensions with this loophole. It isn’t the employee’s fault - management in DOC has been a joke for years.
Comment by Southern Dude Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 6:03 pm
Brave New World there would be room for compromise if there is 5 full work days following the overtime.
Comment by Macon Deliberations Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 7:05 pm
Candy -
i agree there are staffing issues.
But this is clear cut abuse of the overtime pay system.
Benefit time is not eligible for overtime, or atleast should not be, period.
The Commutative property says it does not matter which order the hours are earned. Taking a sick day and then working an extra shift to earn overtime is, mathmatically, the same as working a shift and then taking a sick day to earn overtime.
If you take a sick day and then want to work extra hours that day or that week, you should either zero out the sick time and get your sick day back, or work the extra hours but at the regular rate.
“Overtime” is to compensate you for working an extremely long day or week, not line your pocket with extra dough because you wanted to go golfing.
The current system works well for everyone but the tax payers. Guards are making big dollars, that makes them happy, so management does not have to deal with a lot of complaints, and they can also use overtime shifts as a carrot and stick.
IDOC had three million hours of overtime paid out in one fiscal year,
A year is 8,760 hours.
That is 342 YEARS of overtime hours paid out to prison staff in just one year.
That is tough to defend.
Comment by Juvenal Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 7:13 pm
A simple solution that was being made, not sure if all facilities were doing this, but, is, if you use benefit time, you should be placed last on the overtime list. Otherwise, they have to resort to mandatory overtime, making an officer work 16 hours in lieu of discipline, or shutting down programs or locking down the prison. Better solution, is either hiring the proper amount of staff, or, if it is in the end cheaper, let them work overtime, as long as they are at the bottom of the list to prevent abuse.
Comment by Duh Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 7:22 pm
In a row that is haha
Comment by Macon Deliberations Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 7:26 pm
It was standing orders at IDOT, no OT on a day that leave was used.
“We spent 8 hours of vacation time, we got 12 hours of pay.”
About the only time we got more than time and a half was working on a paid holiday, such as Columbus Day. Then we received the 8 hours of holiday pay plus time and a half of OT.
Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Sep 23, 25 @ 8:09 pm