The Fulton County Board of Commissioners last week paused the reauthorization of double-overtime pay for detention officers and sheriff’s deputies over questions about how the money is being spent.
Federal law requires that Fulton County Sheriff’s Office employees are paid time-and-a-half for overtime hours. Sheriff Patrick Labat, who was elected in 2020, has made efforts to boost pay for employees of his understaffed department. One of those efforts included boosting overtime pay to up to double an employee’s normal hourly rate.
A ‘yes’ vote on the funding legislation before the commission would have made as much as $2.1 million available for sheriff’s office double overtime payments through the end of the calendar year. But additional funding for the sheriff’s office has received increased scrutiny from the commissioners since they shut down the sheriff’s inmate welfare fund last November after discovering that millions of dollars had been improperly spent.
Bob Ellis, one of two commissioners who requested last year’s audit of the inmate welfare fund, questioned during last week’s meeting how overtime funds had been allocated. In 2023, the county spent approximately $6.5 million on overtime pay for the sheriff’s office, with $3.6 million going to non-jail staff, he said.
“Just last year, 22 people received $1 million worth of overtime pay. The average salary of those folks was [$65,000]; the average overtime they got was [$46,000],” Ellis said.
Kenneth Hermon Jr., Fulton County’s human resources director, told the commissioners that unlike previous legislation, this resolution would have only authorized overtime pay for deputies and detention officers in two units within the sheriff’s office.
Labat’s office did not respond to Capital B Atlanta’s request for comment.
The commissioners’ vote comes as Labat faces three two primary challengers for the Democratic nomination for his seat in two months, and while his office has also dealt with other woes. In January, a judge ruled that the sheriff failed to comply with a 2022 settlement over the treatment of some incarcerated women with mental illness. The sheriff’s office has also had to deal with a rash of 11 deaths of people incarcerated at the Fulton County Jail dating back to last year.
