Report: State Nurses Worked Millions of Hours Of Overtime In 2015
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A new report from a state oversight agency finds state nurses and psychiatric technicians worked nearly 4 million hours of overtime last year—or four times the national average.
The findings were released on Tuesday in a 24-page report by the Little Hoover Commission. It found overtime for nursing staff at state facilities cost $179 million.
"What we found was rather shocking," said Carole D'Elia.
The state oversight group found that those working with some of the state's most challenging patients clocked more than 3.5 million hours of overtime last year.
"It seemed like there was something wrong with the way they were staffing," she said.
Of the state's 14,000 nurses, the report found 85 percent of the entire state worked overtime to the tune of $179 million. That's the equivalent of 1,800 employees working 40-hour weeks for a full year.
The president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association says the report highlights the need for a major overhaul at California Correctional Health Care Services, Department of State Hospitals, Department of Developmental Services, and California Department of Veteran Affairs.
"This is an extraordinary waste by the state of California," said Jon Coupal. "There's a lot of accountability that needs to be had here and it's got to start with our elected legislators who allow these allow these collective bargaining agreements to continue."
The report found nurses were three times more likely to make an error when working 12 or more hours, which leads to an increased risk of on-the-job injury.
"It's a vicious cycle," D'Elia said. "Nurses who work too many hours are often injured on the job and then they're out and then that creates the need for ever more overtime."
Now, with recommendations to the governor and legislature to cut overtime by 50 percent by 2018 and reform service and staffing policies, Coupal remains cautiously optimistic.
"That is realistic if this were the private sector," he said. "This could happen overnight if there were the political will for it."
Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas authored legislation two years ago that would have banned mandatory overtime for nurses at state facilities. It was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who said the issue was best resolved through the collective bargaining process.
