'Excessive' BCSO overtime spending leads to call for investigation

One deputy racked up $68K in OT last year, records show

SAN ANTONIO – Earlier this year, a KSAT 12 Defenders investigation uncovered records showing three Bexar County Sheriff's Office deputies had been paid a combined $71,000 in overtime pay last year.

Newly obtained records show that in the same time period, a single patrol deputy made more than $68,000 in overtime. That figure amounted to well over double his annual salary, records show.

The deputy, assigned to west patrol, worked well over 1,100 hours guarding the perimeter of the county's adult detention center, according to his work attendance records.

His perimeter OT hours were accrued during the last 10 months of 2018, after three capital murder suspects briefly escaped from the jail, a BCSO spokesperson confirmed.

As examples of excessive overtime within BCSO continue to emerge, the agency's overtime practices are coming under increased scrutiny. 

Curtis Kalin, communications director for Washington D.C.-based Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit government watchdog group, said there are several "red flags" to the Sheriff Office's overtime practices.

"The fact that he's (the sheriff) in charge of a massive budget underscores the fact that you need to be smarter with the money. The bigger the organization, the more chance you might have waste," said Kalin.

To date, the Defenders have found at least 24 deputies on the law enforcement side of BCSO who were paid out $10,000 or more in overtime last year..

The list is more substantial when you consider that under county rules, a deputy must accumulate 480 hours of compensatory time before even qualifying for overtime.

The Defenders are not naming the deputies, at the request of a BCSO spokesperson.

"You lose other key priorities. You don't fund those and you fund the excessive overtime because of bad budgeting," said Kalin, who added the current overtime situation warrants an investigation into how these payouts could be cut down.

BCSO officials have not said what other areas of the budget have been impacted because of the OT payouts.

The latest revelation comes after a Defenders investigation in January found that three members of the Sheriff's Community Oriented Resource and Education unit, or SCORE, combined to make over $70,000 in overtime last year.

Salazar, who called the OT "money well spent" during an interview for that story, refused a request to be interviewed for this story.

He instead sent the following prepared statement: 

The security perimeter position of our Detention Center is not funded; therefore; we must cover all three shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year exclusively with overtime. The amount of money spent on public safety, community policing and providing security perimeter for our Adult Detention Center was well spent. I am proud to have such committed Deputies providing effective public safety and the numbers demonstrate the countless hours they have spent, on the clock, doing exactly that.

Additionally, once the physical improvements of the perimeter fence are completed, that position will no longer be needed.

While the agency had the opportunity to fund the perimeter security position in its 2019 budget, effectively cutting out the need for overtime to staff the position, it appears that it did not.

BCSO officials did not respond to several follow up questions from the Defenders about why a perimeter position was not funded, despite having six months to factor the job into its budget plans. 

Additionally, sources say some of the deputies who racked up over $10,000 in OT last year did so in assignments other than guarding the jail's perimeter.

Internal records show that earlier this month BCSO's organizational structure was changed, moving the SCORE unit under new supervision so that its resources could be used in the most efficient manner.


About the Authors:

Emmy-award winning reporter Dillon Collier joined KSAT Investigates in September 2016. Dillon's investigative stories air weeknights on the Nightbeat and on the Six O'Clock News. Dillon is a two-time Houston Press Club Journalist of the Year and a Texas Associated Press Broadcasters Reporter of the Year.

Joshua Saunders is an Emmy-nominated photographer/editor who has worked in the San Antonio market for the past 20 years. Joshua works in the Defenders unit, covering crime and corruption throughout the city.