It seems that excessive overtime by some of the employees at the Hough-Dement Animal Shelter could be taking a bite out of the city budget.
At Monday night’s Indianola Board of Aldermen meeting, Alderman Sam Brock stated that three employees in that department have accumulated over 600 hours of overtime during the prior three-month period, which includes the months of August, September and October. “That’s abusing the system some kind of way,” Brock said.
Apparently something has been requiring the workers to keep some late hours. “I want to know what is taking so long that you got to do it after 5:00… 12:00, 1:00 and 2:00, what is going on with the excessive hours overtime,” Brock asked.
Mayor Steve Rosenthal also sided with Brock. “I have to agree, there are some that are excessive,” he said. Shelter Manager Melanie Brook Bell was called upon to shed some light on the matter and attributed some of the overtime to call-outs where possibly two people needed to respond.
She said another issue is persons coming in to adopting animals and wasting a good deal of time trying to pick out an animal.
Alderman Marvin Elder suggested that Bell set specific hours for people adopt animals as a way of controlling how much time is spent on that issue and to keep patrons from continually interrupting the work flow.
In addition, Bell said that properly handling the facility after an outbreak such as ringworm also required additional time.
Furthermore, if something happens just as they are leaving and it needs to be addressed then they would stay over and handle it before clocking out, said Bell.
Addressing Bell, Elder said, “Alderman Brock was mentioning 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. at night, can you stagger that shift? Because by the time you pay your guys time and a half, yours is $18.50, Elizabeth’s is $18 per hour, can’t we divide that time up? That’ll save the city some money and that will get you all off of the clock because, animals… they go to sleep.”
Brock then questioned whether the call-outs Bell mentioned earlier were during the day or after-hours. She said it was both. “But most times in the after-hours, y’all don’t even show up,” Brock said.
He stated that the police department responds to after-hour calls, but by that time the animal is long gone and the shelter employee never shows.
“So, how do you explain call-out hours? We need to straighten this up,” asserted Brock.
He suggested that the abuse of overtime is happening during the after-hours call-outs.
“What y’all get at night?” he asked. Bell said stray dogs that hang out at U.S. 82 businesses. “Liz chased a dog for two hours from Walmart,” Bell added. She said the Popeye’s restaurant was another frequent call-out.
Brock then suggested that the city inspector have Popeye’s do a better job of keeping the trash cleaned up from around their dumpsters.
Bell continued her explanation, “Then we also have one particular person who always calls Liz after hours to help come catch some wild dogs and she said that she was told to always answer that call,” Bell said.
Brock asked if it was the same person over and over and Bell indicated that it was. So, he offered several alternatives to address that repetitive need. Bell persisted, “It took us probably a month of setting traps to get two dogs,” she added. Brock then suggested they apply a different strategy for that as well.
Alderman Darrell Simpson also questioned why any employee would need to be at the shelter after midnight. Bell said there was none on a day-to-day basis; however, it could possibly be necessary when preparing to spay and neuter or transport the animals.
Brock then questioned whether or not they prepared for those activities several days in advance and Bell indicated that they did.
“If you’re doing it three to five days prior, I don’t see 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. It’s something y’all being lax on or something not getting done, I don’t really know what it is, but these hours is just too excessive,” Brock said.
Bell explained that certain preparations, such as baths for the animals, could only be done within a certain time frame before transportation. Bell said that she presently has 130 dogs and cats. Rosenthal then implied that she likely has 110 to 120 at any given time.
The aldermen agreed that the bottom line is that the overtime needs to be reduced. Alderman Gary Fratesi said, “I guess where we’re going is, this board would like to see the hours cut. We know you’re going to have overtime, working on the weekends. But the board, unless it’s an emergency, we don’t see anything staying past 10:00.”
Fratesi said it looks like the overtime is being abused. “Not saying it is, but it looks that way,” he said. He advised that stopping the late night work would help reduce the overtime a great deal.
Rosenthal suggested that Bell use her part-time and lower-salary full-time employee for any overtime work.
During the meeting Rosenthal had suggested that the number of overtime hours stated by Brock may not have been entirely accurate; however, after going back and checking the numbers that Brock put forth on Monday night Rosenthal said, “I do see that number is correct for August, September and October. Mrs. Bell was hired first of August so there were only two people operating the shelter till the second week of September when a part-timer and a full-timer were hired.”
He reemphasized that the shelter operates seven days a week and is open six days and acknowledged the help received from volunteers.
“We are fortunate that we have help from the Sunflower County Humane Society for their many volunteer hours that they work,” he said.
