A new report released by the Erie County comptroller shows dozens of high level county employees received thousands and, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars in overtime pay for work related to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw compiled COVID-19-related overtime accrued by 54 Managerial Confidential employees, non-union staff who are hired and serve at the pleasure of an elected official, and found the county paid out $825,000 over an 18-week period this year.

"Government worked well in this example," Mychajliw said. "The chair of the Legislature asked for the data. We were able to compile it in a very quick manner and we supplied it to them."

Topping the list was the Erie County health commissioner, who made roughly $84,000 in overtime and another $4,000 in holiday pay. A number of high level employees from the sheriff's office were also at the top of the list, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars each.

"It's just not a good look," Mychajliw said. "It really isn't. There are a lot of people in the private sector who have lost their jobs. Then, adding insult to injury, they can't get through to New York state unemployment to get a few hundred extra bucks a week and here you have high-priced political appointees making more in 18 weeks than what most hardworking people across Erie County make in an entire year."

MCs, for short, typically are not paid overtime, but were eligible because of the emergency order. County legislators, who raised questions earlier this week, said they recognize staff was working extremely hard and long hours to deal with the pandemic, but it's the Legislature's obligation to now make sure all that time is accounted for.

"If there has been any mismanagement of funds, or anyone abusing their opportunity to get overtime during COVID-19, I know that is something here at the Legislature that we are going to address head on," Chair April Baskin said.

Coronavirus expenses are supposed to be reimbursed under the federal CARES Act, but legislators said they need to do their due diligence and investigate anyway.

"If we didn't look into it, if we didn't make sure that every dollar was accounted for, that would be problematic for us, and it's something that we need to do because we don't know if the federal government's going to come back and say, ‘hey, you can't keep that money,’ " Lorigo said.

The county executive's office said the departments under his control followed the same procedure as past emergency events. Time was required to be properly documented or would not have qualified for overtime reimbursement.