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Q&A
Council member questions district attorneys about overtime spending
6:07:42
ยท
3 min
Council Member Yusef Salaam inquires about the high overtime spending of various District Attorney offices, asking for clarification on why they have exceeded their budgeted amounts and if they will request increases. The District Attorneys from the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn respond, explaining their overtime practices, reasons for exceeding budgets, and how they manage these expenses.
- Bronx DA Darcel Clark states they follow city overtime cap regulations and use waivers when necessary.
- Queens DA Melinda Katz explains that overtime is mainly for support staff and paralegals, not ADAs, and is necessary to meet deadlines.
- Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez mentions that a large portion of their overtime goes to detective investigators, partly due to reduced NYPD staffing in DA squads.
Yusef Salaam
6:07:42
At adoption, the Bronx DA had 227,777 budgeted for overtime.
6:07:50
Yet as of January has spent 1,092,000.
6:07:56
The Brooklyn DA had budgeted 1,000,000 but has spent 1.7 and the Queens DA had budgeted $801,597 but spent 1,200,000.0.
6:08:08
Please clarify why each of your offices have or has already exceeded your planned overtime spending only six months into the fiscal year and will you be requesting increases to your budget for additional overtime spending in the executive plan?
Darcel Clark
6:08:29
No.
6:08:32
Well, we don't my office doesn't really have an overtime issue.
6:08:36
We follow the city's overtime cap regulations and we basically stay within that, you know, guidelines in order to try to get the work done.
6:08:49
I know that we have some issues with unions and, you know, they negotiate certain things certain time should be overtime, certain times they can't stay and we have to find other ways to do it.
6:09:00
Sometimes we give them compensatory days as opposed to overtime.
6:09:04
It's a mixture, but overall, if there's something that has to be overtime we get a waiver from OMB.
6:09:11
That's the city's guidelines.
6:09:13
And that's what we tend to do in my office.
Melinda Katz
6:09:20
Happy to.
6:09:20
So, we first of all you know that ADAs don't get overtime, right?
6:09:25
So it's support staff and it's paralegals, it's TPAs.
6:09:28
And they're the ones that are getting the overtime.
6:09:30
And I think similar to what the other DAs have said, you know when the work needs to be done, the work needs to be done.
6:09:36
And at the end of the day, we'd much rather have that work done by individuals that we can hire and actually add to our staff.
6:09:45
But you don't always know when it's coming and when the work needs to be done, it needs to be done.
6:09:50
We are on a path right now.
6:09:52
In 2025 we have about $300,000 of overtime so far.
6:09:57
So I think we're on a consistent path from last year.
6:10:01
And like we said, if we don't have the everyday staff to do it, you've got to get that done.
6:10:06
We have deadlines every single day in court and every single day on our motion practice and every single day of the investigations as well.
6:10:14
It's not just about trial practice.
6:10:16
It's also about investigating people that are being defrauded or people that need our assistance.
6:10:21
And so sometimes those investigations and that trial practice takes us into OT.
Eric Gonzalez
6:10:31
In terms of the overtime in our office, the largest segment of that is going to be, as D.
6:10:39
A.
6:10:40
Katz said, it's not going to ADAs.
6:10:42
ADAs don't get overtime.
6:10:44
It's the other professionals.
6:10:46
But in my office, the largest segment of that goes to the law enforcement, to the detective investigators.
6:10:53
One of the things that I will say that I've been a prosecutor for twenty eight years, as you know, as the NYPD headcount has shrunk, so have the staffing of police officers that are detectives that are assigned to the DA squads.
6:11:10
So much of the work that had been typically done by NYPD in our offices are now being done by detective investigators in our office who are mostly retired law enforcement.
6:11:21
There are some career detective investigators.
6:11:24
That is a tremendous piece of the overtime budget, but what I would like to assure the chairman and everyone in the Public Safety Committee during the seven years that have been district attorney, we have never once gone over the budgeted that we've had, and we don't expect to do so this year.