By Mike Linn
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
PINE BLUFF, Ark. —The Jefferson County sheriff’s office will disburse $2,500 in checks and 550 hours of additional compensatory time to current and former deputies who were improperly keeping work hours on time sheets, the county attorney said.
County Attorney Terry Wynne said the sheriff’s office did a self-audit last year after a U.S. Department of Labor inquiry.
The audit found that deputies, in some instances, were claiming to have worked nine-hour days without noting on their time sheets that they had taken an hour for lunch and breaks, Wynne said.
The sheriff ‘s office would then pay those deputies for eight hours of work for the day they put down nine hours, assuming they incidentally forgot to note time off for breaks.
Wynne said the U.S. Department of Labor decided the deputies should receive the additional time and that the sheriff’s office needed to inform deputies to show breaks on their time sheets.
Eight former deputies will receive about $2,500 together in checks ranging from $34.59 to $718.31, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Seventeen current deputies will receive about 550 hours together of additional comp time, according to the records.
“It isn’t significant enough to cause any problems in the 2009 budget,” Wynne said. “We have sent a memo to deputies to take their hour breaks and to show that on their time sheets.”
Copyright 2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette