(The Center Square) — For a growing number of corrections officers in Allegheny County, overtime now rivals – and, in some cases, exceeds – their base salary, an analysis of pay data by The Center Square found.
Last year, 107 guards at Pittsburgh’s main jail earned at least half their pay from overtime, according to county records. As recently as 2016, only 28 did so.
The nearly four-fold increase reveals the extent to which the jail system in western Pennsylvania relies on overtime. Jail staff made up just 11 percent of the county’s workforce last year. Yet they accounted for 52 percent of those whose overtime pay exceeded half of their total earnings…