Energy Management

The Energy Department's (DOE) direct overtime costs for federal employees almost doubled from $15.5 million to $30.4 million in 1992. DOE has paid overtime for everything from carpet installation to the transport and escort of special nuclear materials. DOE's efforts to manage overtime and minimize costs have been minimal. First, written justifications for overtime are often vague and reviewed only by the employees' immediate supervisors. Thus, some questionable overtime, such as driving DOE officials to the airport from their homes on weekends, continues without scrutiny to ensure that this work is essential or cost-effective. Second, although federal agencies may require that employees take compensatory time rather than receive pay for overtime, DOE does not require them to take compensatory time. Finally, contrary to DOE's policy, employees' annual leave is not always planned to minimize the use of overtime. In some cases, employees took annual leave, worked several regular hours, and then worked overtime after regular working hours.

GAO found that: (1) DOE direct overtime costs almost doubled from $15.5 million in 1989 to $30.4 million in 1992; (2) direct overtime costs declined to $26.5 million in 1993, mainly due to the Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) reduction of its overtime costs to improve its financial condition; (3) DOE pays, on average, an additional $1.5 million annually in indirect overtime costs that result from its share of social security contributions and unused compensatory time; (4) the DOE organizations and activities that contribute to overtime costs vary significantly; (5) BPA and the Albuquerque Field Office account for over 60 percent of total DOE overtime costs; (6) DOE written justifications for overtime are often vague and are reviewed by only the employees' immediate supervisors; (7) DOE has no guidance on what constitutes essential work; (8) many DOE offices believe that overtime is needed because they do not have sufficient staff to meet their increasing workloads; (9) DOE does not require higher-paid employees to take compensatory time in lieu of overtime pay for irregular or unscheduled overtime; (10) DOE pays for unused compensatory time at the overtime rate; and (11) contrary to policy, DOE does not always plan employees' annual leave to minimize the use of overtime because many supervisors are unaware of the requirement.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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