3 January 2 - 8, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Crime Doesn’t Pay ... On Time Just in time for the holidays, Dallas County shorts jail guards on pay … again. BY EMMA RUBY A ndy Thompson was looking forward to spending Christmas out of town with family for the first time in years. After a tough year spent working long hours, balancing his family’s finances and manag- ing several personal hardships, the trip was a splurge he believed he had earned. But just before the holidays, a financial wrench was thrown into his plans. Thomp- son is an officer at the Dallas County Jail, one of the 700 officers whose paychecks were short for several weeks leading up to the holi- days. There was $800 missing from his pay- check the week before Thanksgiving, then more than $1,600 left off his Dec. 6 paycheck. On Dec. 20, less than a week before Christ- mas, came the third strike: his check was short by nearly $2,000. “I’m having to realize the county just doesn’t care,” he told the Observer. The missing money meant Thompson — who spoke with us using a pseudonym be- cause he was concerned about retaliation from his employer — spent Christmas in Dallas. He pushed off bills so he could afford gifts for his family members. According to Dallas County officials, a tweak to the Kronos payroll system resulted in hundreds of officers missing pay through the end of November and December — the time of year they need it most. Formerly, su- pervisors would record employees’ overtime worked after each eight hour day, but a new policy requires that overtime be recorded only after an employee has worked 40 hours in a week, and compensatory time — time off given in lieu of overtime pay — is now the default payment for that overtime. County officials claim that the 200 timekeepers charged with recording employees’ time worked were trained and are continuing to be trained on the new system management. But the number of erroneous paychecks issued shows that there were cracks in the county’s system. In the Dec. 17 Commissioners Court meet- ing, officials confirmed that 700 officers had their overtime hours coded to be paid with comp time, resulting in the officers’ pay- checks being lower than they had expected. Those officials assured commissioners that the problems with the way overtime hours were being counted had been remedied, and that the money missing from the Nov. 22 check was paid to officers on Nov. 25. The money missing from the Dec. 6 would be in- cluded in the Dec. 20 paycheck. Continued timekeeper training would ensure that no one received an erroneous check after Dec. 6. “We want to make sure everybody has their money for Christmas, and as far as we know, this overtime has been corrected,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said with a note of cautious optimism. “There’s no- body that has not received money that is owed to them, right?” Reporting by the Observer found that pay issues did persist, though. As of the Dec. 20 paycheck, we were told there were still doz- ens of incorrect balances. There has been improvement, but the financial delays offi- cers experienced meant less money to pay for Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas presents. How the Problem Began W hen Thompson clocked in at work on Nov. 22, he overheard disgruntled whispers among his fellow Dallas County Jail officers. It was payday, but when the officers had checked their bank balances that morning, several discovered that their paychecks were smaller than expected. As he spoke with co- workers throughout the day, Thompson heard about paychecks being anywhere from $200 to $1,400 short. With Thanksgiving a week away, some of- ficers lamented that they’d have to prioritize paying bills over purchasing a turkey, he said. After calculating the overtime hours he’d worked during the pay period, Thompson — who has worked at the jail for more than five years — realized his check was $800 less than expected. Within a week, the county sent Thompson the missing amount, but the problem wasn’t fixed by the time the next payday rolled around. On Dec. 6, Thompson’s paycheck was missing 35 hours of overtime pay, which at time-and-half overtime rates amounts to more than $1,600 in lost wages. “It’s just been a whole mess. Morale is in the crapper,” Thompson said at the time. “Now people are worried about if they’re even going to get to buy their kids Christmas presents, because they may not even have enough money to pay their bills let alone do Christmas. So it’s just a stressful situation.” A spokesperson with the U.S. Depart- ment of Labor confirmed that the depart- ment’s Wage and Hour Division had opened an investigation into the missing wages offi- cers began reporting in November. The in- vestigation is said to be “ongoing,” but no other information was made available. The Observer spoke with four officers em- ployed at the Dallas County Jail who were not financially compensated for overtime hours worked for at least two of the last three pay periods. One officer had multiple complaints over inaccurate pay forwarded to a third- party payroll company, which then referred the officer back to their direct supervisors. Those supervisors, in turn, told the officer to reach out to the third-party company. “No one is taking responsibility,” said the officer, who said they had not received a re- sponse to any email inquiry regarding their pay. A third Dallas County Jail officer said that nearly 40 hours of overtime work was left out of their Dec. 6 paycheck — they were instead compensated in compensatory time. The officer described the situation as a “fi- asco” and is considering legal recourse. “Everyone is in an uproar,” the officer said. “These guys are a bunch of crooks and they’re messing with people’s money.” On Dec. 20, that same officer said they were unable to “look at the details” of their most recent paycheck. While the dollar amount looked higher than their past checks, they said it was difficult to tell whether the payroll problem had been com- pletely corrected. A fourth officer provided screenshots of a Dallas County employee Facebook group that showed ongoing complaints of payroll errors. Employees who typically receive their paychecks 24 hours early began post- ing Thursday night that the money hadn’t hit their accounts. On the morning of Dec. 20, frustrated Facebook posts seemed to confirm that the payroll problems had persisted — albeit to a lesser degree — and the officer said he knew of around a dozen employees whose pay re- mained incorrect. That officer said his col- leagues were able to get checks that day from the payroll department to cover their missing balances, but the continuing inaccu- rate amounts on employee paychecks was concerning. After the Dec. 20 paycheck was issued, the Observer reached out to Jenkins and asked how the county was working to ad- dress the concerns of individuals whose hol- iday plans were sacrificed thanks to the missing money. His office confirmed know- ing of one employee who had been incor- rectly paid that day. “The employee’s pay has been cor- rected and funds were already distributed to the individual. If there are others, we have not yet heard about them,” a state- ment provided by Jenkins said. “Our County Administrator also checked with the Sheriff’s department first thing this morning and they also stated they were not aware of any employees whose pay was not correct with the exception of the one. We are unaware of any additional em- ployees that reported their paycheck was incorrect.” The fourth officer said their paycheck had been corrected on Dec. 20 and included back pay to cover the missing Dec. 6 balance, but they had a new worry — officers were having trouble verifying their most recent paycheck because their paystubs were un- available, he said. | UNFAIR PARK | Illustration by Sarah Schumacher >> p4
