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News The Ellis County Press “Ferris settles police lawsuit” FERRIS – After a year of litigation, the City of Ferris has settled a lawsuit brought by police department personnel claiming they were not paid for overtime worked from 2001 to 2003.
Officers Brad Lindsey, Jeff Aaron, Joe Vela, Mike Zaidle and dispatchers Sue Reed, Patsy Brenner, Josie Hamm and Robbie Hobbs filed the lawsuit in United States District Court against the city in March 2005. Vela and Hamm are no longer employed by the city. Through mediation the city agreed to pay $125,000, which was 19 percent of the $653,712 originally requested by the department personnel in the lawsuit. The amount included the plaintiffs’ attorney fees of $51,569, instead of the requested $148,272. “They were paid what was due and it was a fair settlement,” said Bob Gorsky, the officers’ and dispatchers’ attorney. Under the terms of the settlement the city had until April 1 to pay $83,277.48, including matching funds to the federal government paying for each employee’s social security payments. Checks were mailed out to the city’s law firm on Friday, March 24, before being disbursed to the officers and dispatchers. No later than Jan. 31, 2007 the remainder of the settlement must be paid, including six percent interest rate fees. Lt. Mike Zaidle was paid almost twice as much as the other officers and dispatchers to compensate him for the time he served informally as the city’s acting police chief after Chief Jeff Cottongame and Lt. Sherman were placed on paid administrative leave. “It has depleted the city’s reserves, which wasn’t very strong to begin with,” City Manager Gus Pappas said. The planned purchased of a squad car will have to be put on hold until the city’s finances improve. Police department personnel, including dispatchers, worked four 12-hour days on and four days off during Cottongame’s administration. Swafford developed the scheduling situation which he claimed would not require officers to work overtime, according to former Ferris officers. “It was prior administrators that created the problem with the way they did the shifts,” City Attorney David Dodd said. In a letter to Dodd, Gorsky claimed his clients worked an extra 32 hours per month for a total of 384 hours each year in his original settlement demand. “In those weeks in which plaintiffs worked in excess of 40 hours, they were paid base hourly rates only,” he stated. The Fair Labor Standard Act demands officers must be paid overtime in excess of 86 hours every two weeks. “You have to pay them for every hour they work,” said Pappas, adding that overtime pay only applies after the officers work 86 hours every two weeks. City officials searched through hundreds of payroll documents to determine exactly how many hours of actual overtime the officers worked without pay, according to Pappas. Officers now work four 12-hour shifts, then four days off and another three 12-hour shifts during their two week time period. Dispatchers are now working traditional 40-hour-a-week shifts. |
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