Noxubee Co. ordered to pay employees over $200,000 for overtime hours

NOXUBEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- Employees with the Noxubee County Sheriff’s Department said the county owes them hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay for the past two years.

Board members said the issue of back pay for overtime was first presented to them three weeks ago.

They also said they’re not wasting any time addressing the matter, and taxpayers shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

$186,000 plus benefits– That’s the amount Noxubee County Board of Supervisors President Eddie Coleman said the county owes employees.

“The wage-and-hour people came in and investigated us from a complaint by an employee, and they made a ruling that we have to pay $186,000.00 back time because of the way we were figuring the overtime,” said Coleman.

Coleman said the Board agreed in their Monday morning meeting to pay back the full amount in monthly installments over the next two years.

He said the first payment is scheduled for September 1st of 2019; however, District 5 Supervisor Bruce Brooks opposed the agreement to pay back the overtime.

He said the county needs a specific plan of action before agreeing to anything.

“I feel like we are gone have to put something in place so that we don’t have this problem going forward. That’s our responsibility, and we take responsibility to try and run this county to the best management we can,” said Brooks.

Although the county does not have an official plan of action when it comes to making budget cuts, they said they are confident they will be able to make the first payment in September thanks to some help from the Sheriff.

“We are kind of doing an internal investigation as well. The Sheriff has met with us. He’s looking and working with his guys to make sure that he minimizes overtime work as needed,” said Brooks.

“The deputies have changed from working salary to working hourly, and right now they are just working 40 hours a week,” said Coleman.

No overtime hours means the county will have to find new ways to ensure public safety.

“The Sheriff reported that he was going to be hiring a couple other part-timers which will help offset the overtime and so that’s reasoning for trying to help us to keep the budget down by using part-timers,” said Brooks.

Even though Brooks was not in favor of the agreement initially, he said all of the supervisors are on the same page when it comes to ensuring this doesn’t happen again.

The county will have to pay over seventy-seven hundred dollars monthly to reach its goal in 2 years.

Once Again, supervisors said they do not plan to raise taxes in order to make the payments.