Migrant crisis spurred nearly 3 million overtime hours for two NYC agencies— costing taxpayers $139M
New York City’s biggest overtime hogs for a second straight year are mostly rank-and-file workers responsible for tackling the Big Apple’s $6 billion-plus migrant crisis, The Post has learned.
Fifty-one of the 100 city employees who racked up the most OT during the fiscal year ending June 30 work at the Departments of Social Services and Homeless Services, and their duties include assisting migrants, an examination of city payroll records shows.
Each worker accumulated at least 1,851 hours in extra pay.
Leading the way was Kashwayne Burnett, a DSS bookkeeper who worked 3,303 hours of overtime in the agency’s Manhattan office. That comes to roughly 14 hours a day, seven days a week. The 10-year veteran’s $164,760 in overtime pay more than tripled his $60,445 base salary.
Bardhan Pijush, a DSS caseworker, was second with 3,137 extra hours, followed by Gavin McAuley, a DHS housekeeper who clocked 2,664 hours of OT.
In the previous fiscal year, 47 employees at both departments were among the 100 who worked the most OT, a huge leap from fiscal 2022 when only three workers made the list.
The migrant crisis “has been a major drain” on all municipal resources, but the DSS and DHS’s overtime hours and payouts are “absolutely staggering,” City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) told The Post.
“We simply can’t continue down this path,” he said. “It has to end, and taxpayers are sick of it.”
DSS and DHS staffers have been especially stretched thin by the more than 226,900 asylum seekers and other border crossers who’ve reached the Big Apple since April 2022 – and many have seen their workloads soar because of it.
As of Friday the city’s migrant-crisis tab was $6.5 billion, and 53,800 migrants were still in city care at taxpayer-funded shelters as of Dec. 15, city officials said.
Both agencies in fiscal 2024 racked up a jaw-dropping 2,959,114 hours of overtime combined, totaling more than $139.4 million in payouts, records show.
That’s a staggering 67% increase from the 1,770,634 overtime hours worked by DSS and DHS staffers in fiscal 2021, which predated the migrant crisis, while agencies’ workers earnings for extra shifts have nearly doubled since then, from $72.3 million.
It’s also a 10% increase from fiscal 2023, when the agencies’ staff combined to rack up 2,690,659 additional hours, totaling $123.1 million in overtime earnings.
New York taxpayers are still on the hook for picking up the tab for the Biden administration’s border blunders, warned Ken Girardin, director of research for the nonprofit think tank Empire Center for Public Policy.
“The bill is still running — we’re going to see bills like this for at least another year,” he said.
When asked about the surge in OT to help migrants, DSS spokesperson Neha Sharma said the agency is “extremely grateful” to its staffers who, “despite truly unprecedented challenges, have stepped up and worked long hours to provide necessary support for our newest arrivals and long-term New Yorkers in need.”
“It is because of our remarkable staff that the City of New York can continue to do more than any other level of government to support asylum seekers while providing robust services and support to vulnerable New Yorkers,” she said.
Burnett and Pijush did not return messages. McAuley could not be reached for comment.
