Overtime costs soared at DWP’s security unit amid lax oversight, watchdog report finds

Supervisors at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s security division bolstered their paychecks by working regular hours at overtime rates, according to a report from the utility’s Office of Inspector General.

The report found both a lack of oversight and a lack of set policies surrounding overtime at the security division.

“Written policies regarding overtime [at the security division] are largely nonexistent,” the report noted. It also said that “individuals self-reported overtime work without any apparent effort by respective managers to assess whether the time was actually worked or whether the use of overtime was appropriate.”

Overtime expenditures at the division were 66% of regular labor compensation, while overtime for the utility as a whole was 26% of compensation from 2017 to 2022.

The DWP Board of Commissioners will discuss the 21-page report at Tuesday’s commission meeting. The board sought the report, which studied overtime use at the security services division during that period.

Former DWP Inspector General Sergio Perez told The Times that the absence of policies around overtime “may have led to potentially unjustified expenditures of millions of dollars.”

The study “revealed systemic issues and failures by the department to effectively manage overtime in the public’s best interest,” said Perez, who worked on the report but left the DWP in December to join the Los Angeles city controller’s office.

The use of overtime at the security division was “consistently higher than that of the LADWP as a whole,” the report found. On average, the division spent $13.72 million annually in overtime over the five-year period, according to the report.

Security division “employees, on average, are making nearly three times more in overtime pay compared to all LADWP employees,” the report found.

The security services division has about 250 employees, including 28 supervisors, who are responsible for ensuring the safety of department staff, facilities and visitors.

The report found that uniformed security and their supervisors within the division “were the primary drivers of overtime costs during the review period.”

The report highlighted how employees can earn double pay for regular hours: A “uniformed supervisor who is asked to work more than one hour immediately before a scheduled shift is then due 2X pay for that time and the regular shift that follows.”

Investigators studied unscheduled overtime hours and scheduled regular shift hours that were paid at overtime rates. “The data revealed that, on average, nearly 30% of hours paid at 2X were actually regular shift hours — not true overtime,” the report found.

Also, security officers and supervisors can qualify for double pay if they are asked to work on a designated rest day or if they have worked above a certain number of hours, according the report.

Starting in 2020, the use of overtime at the security services division declined after the city shifted to using contract services, according to the report.

The high use of overtime at the security division has been on the utility’s radar for years. At a DWP commission hearing last year on the issue, Chris Vicino, who heads the security division, blamed the utility’s slow hiring process.

Vicino faced tough questions from DWP Commission President Cynthia McClain-Hill during the hearing. At one point, Vicino said the security division provided escorts for DWP employees during the 2020 protests in L.A. over the murder of George Floyd. The employees, who were doing water work, didn’t feel safe, Vicino said.

“We provided those escorts for several months,” Vicino said.

“The civil disobedience didn’t go on for months, it went on for days,” McClain-Hill told him.

Overtime rates for security staff are set by collective bargaining agreements, the report noted. However, those bargaining agreements do not establish criteria for when or how the overtime should be used.

Unions that represent DWP workers include Service Employees International Union 721 and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18.

The city’s latest labor agreement with IBEW 18, approved last year by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti and the DWP board of commissioners, allows workers in several units to earn double pay when working overtime. In some cases, workers can earn a double-time rate for normal hours worked, according to the agreement.