Legal News

City Controller: Court's Overtime Jumps by 690 Percent

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

The First Judicial District's overtime jumped from almost $13,000 in the first quarter of the last fiscal year to more than $102,000 this fiscal year, according to a monthly economic report released today by Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz.

The increase has resulted in a 690 percent change, Butkovitz's office said.

FJD Court Administrator Dave Lawrence said that most of the overtime increase can be attributed to the addition of a new department in the office. The clerk for criminal cases, the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, was merged into the office earlier this year.

Lawrence said $62,730 of the overtime came from the Quarter Sessions staff. Another $18,713 came from the court's warrant unit and the court's pretrial services during a fugitive apprehension drive undertaken along with the Philadelphia Police Department and the U.S. Marshall's Office, Lawrence said.

Prothonotary Joseph Evers, who has also been running Quarter Sessions, "is moving aggressively to reduce overtime wherever he can" so next year's overtime numbers in that department may look better, Lawrence said.

Butkovitz said that the city's overtime is up $1.8 million during the first quarter of this fiscal year over last fiscal year, including a $1 million increase in police overtime and a $500,000 increase in fire department overtime.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).