Prompted by a federal investigation, the mayor of Akron has put an end to the illegal, off-the-books tracking of overtime in the city’s police and fire departments.
For more than 30 years, countless overtime hours — presumably tens of thousands — were often never recorded through the city’s formal payroll process, making it impossible for federal officials to get a true accounting of whether employees were being properly compensated.
Instead of formally logging the hours, employees struck side agreements with their immediate supervisors, privately keeping track of what was called “pocket time” in the fire department and “book time” at the police station.
The unofficial overtime was often racked up not for extended street patrols or putting out stubborn house fires but while building relationships with the community on weekends or at night.