L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich calls probation staff overtime a scam

Los Angeles County probation workers have routinely exceeded overtime limits, driving the department 126% beyond its overtime budget for each of the last five years at an annual cost of $9.8 million, according to a county audit released this week.

“What’s troubling is the culture that would allow that to happen,” Supervisor Mike Antonovich said Tuesday. “Millions of dollars that could have been spent on youth are now padding pockets.”

The Probation Department limits overtime to a total of 24 hours a week, and bars its staff members from calling other offices to “shop” for overtime work in their spare time.

But auditors found that probation staff routinely exceeded the 24-hour limit, shopped for additional hours, filled in for positions outside their job descriptions and even held contests to see who could work the most overtime.

Antonovich said he was particularly concerned that probation supervisors steered overtime to “favored employees.”

“They’re scamming the system,” he said of the employees and managers. “They should be disciplined.”

The audit showed that 366 probation staff members worked more than 300 overtime hours in fiscal year 2007-08, earning an average of $42,600 in overtime pay. One probation employee worked 220 hours of overtime a month for five months, including 72 consecutive days.

Chief Probation Officer Robert B. Taylor, who took over the department three years ago, received a draft of the audit in October and said he had already addressed 11 of the 41 recommendations.

According to the audit, the probation department hired an additional 170 staff members for the county’s three juvenile halls in fiscal year 2007-08, but overtime at the halls still increased from $1.14 million to $1.28 million. Taylor said the department temporarily increased overtime at the halls to achieve federally mandated staffing ratios, then reduced it.

On Tuesday, county supervisors unanimously approved a proposal by Supervisors Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavksy directing the Probation Department and the county’s chief executive to report within two months what went wrong, who was disciplined and how they intend to prevent further excessive overtime.

--

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com