Providing security for Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown isn't a 9-5 job.
It's not just Monday-Friday, either.
Brown has made it a priority to attend events across the city, often six days a week, sometimes seven.
With him on his travels are one, sometimes two, Jacksonville police officers. They also go with him to private dinners, media interviews and meetings with his staff.
Like previous mayors, Brown has two police officers dedicated full-time to provide his security.
The officers pick him up in the morning, drive him to appointments, stay at City Hall with him and take him home at night. They're often with him 12-14 hours a day.
The officers spent about 5,000 hours providing security for the mayor from Oct. 1, 2012-Sept. 30, according to an analysis by the Daily Record. Close to 20 percent of those hours — 1,041 — come from overtime.
Total cost to taxpayers: About $310,000 in salary and benefits for the officers, including $53,000 for the overtime hours.
David DeCamp, Brown's director of communications, defended the number of overtime hours and the cost associated with them. He said the newspaper's findings were "not an element of surprise. It's the element of a hard-working mayor."
"Sometimes overtime comes with the territory," he added.
Several City Council members did not see it that way and questioned if there was a way to better handle the situation.
Council President Bill Gulliford said he was "sort of floored by that amount of time."
"I know he's important," Gulliford said of Brown, "but I don't think he's necessarily that important."
Schedules made by Brown administration
Although the officers are employees of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, when they are protecting Brown, their schedules are determined by the Mayor's Office.
"That month they're on with the mayor, they belong to the mayor," said Undersheriff Dwain Senterfitt. "… I can't micromanage that. I don't know what their needs are."
DeCamp said "the schedule of officers at the end of the day is determined by the Mayor's Office."
The office schedules the officers to work Monday-Friday, so the hours they put it on the weekend are overtime.
Most of that overtime was on the weekends for long-planned events, such as Jaguars games, Florida-Georgia week activities and annual festivals.
DeCamp pointed out that the officers don't work the same schedules during the week.
Barring an early-morning obligation for the mayor, the first officer on duty typically works an 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. shift. The second officer comes in later, usually overlapping at least three or four hours a day with the other officer.
DeCamp said the officers' overlap is "for planning and their own coordination."
They may go on the same appointments with the mayor, he said, depending on the security requirements. Those instances are often when Brown will be in a large crowd, such as a football game or a parade, the records show.
When Brown is at City Hall, where he has many meetings each week, the officers are there, as well. DeCamp said the security detail has an office on the same floor as the Mayor's Office.
He again defended the amount of overtime hours, saying "Overtime is accrued in a lot of places in city government. To my knowledge, we haven't received any information that there is an issue with it from JSO."
Senterfitt said the Sheriff's Office talked with Brown's staff after the mayor's first six or eight months in office when a local news outlet did a story about Brown's overtime compared with the final months of Mayor John Peyton's tenure.
"His overtime during that time did look a little high," Senterfitt said. "We had conversations with his staff and said, 'You guys have to manage that.'"
In addition to being on assignments with Brown, officers were paid overtime to do advance security checks for upcoming events and handle maintenance on the mayor's vehicle.
One officer was paid overtime from 10:45 p.m.-1.a.m. to "copy and print out the mayor's talking points for the chief of staff," according to paperwork filed with the Sheriff's Office.
Breaking down the time
Officers worked the most overtime hours — 151.5 — in February, a month mixed with a series of sporting events (Davis Cup tennis matches and soccer games), the education summit featuring Bill Cosby and Black History Month.
The cost of the officers' salary and benefits for February's overtime hours totaled $7,451. Neither of them was on vacation that month, according to their time sheets, which could have caused extra overtime.
In fact, the officers took very little vacation time (about 45 hours total) in the months they were assigned to Brown during the year-long period that was reviewed.
Overtime hours for three other months were in triple figures, as well: October, 149; May, 116; and April, 105.
The months with the least amount of overtime were August (33 hours) and September (51).
The analysis by the Daily Record showed the salary and benefits for the overtime for the four officers ranged from $10,500 to $15,300 during the year-long period reviewed.
That's in addition to their regular salary and benefits totaling about $257,000.
The salaries and overtime are paid from the Sheriff's Office's budget.
Unlike previous mayors who used just two officers for security, Brown asked for four officers so he could rotate teams each month. When not on security detail, the officers work their regular jobs with the Sheriff's Office.
"We do the rotations so officers are fresh and sharp," DeCamp said.
Seeking improvement
Both Gulliford and council member Richard Clark questioned if there were better ways to manage the officers' time.
"You would think there would be ways to rotate people to save some of that overtime," Gulliford said.
Clark added, "It seems excessive. It seems like he would manage that time a lot better."
Council member John Crescimbeni said he would like to see an analysis if it's cheaper to pay the overtime or add another part-time officer to the detail.
Because the overtime rate paid for Brown's security detail doesn't include pension costs, it is actually about $10 per hour cheaper, according to pay rates provided by the Sheriff's Office.
Clark said much of the time devoted to security is "so radically unnecessary."
"Security is there when you need security," he said. "Not for when you need a guy to drive you around with a gun on his hip."
Gulliford questioned if Brown needed two officers each month, especially as other services were cut during the recent budget hearings.
"These are economic times (when) we have to look at every expense and justify," he said. "… If we can get by with one, it might be the prudent thing."
Overtime hours
2012
October: 149
November: 72.33
December: 79.25
2013
January: 96.32
February: 151.5
March: 63.84
April: 105.34
May: 116.25
June: 40.67
July: 82.25
August: 33.08
September: 51.43
TOTAL: 1,041.26
How we did the analysis
The Daily Record requested time sheets, overtime slips, pay scales and schedules for the four officers that rotated through Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown's security detail Oct. 1, 2012-Sept. 30.
Each overtime slip includes an explanation for the extra hours. They range from festivals to private dinners to sporting events. They also include time to pick up and drop off the mayor at his home.
Seven of the hundreds of overtime slips reviewed were for duties not related to providing security for Brown. Examples included training or sexual predator verification. Those occasions and the overtime the officers were paid were not included in the totals used in this story.
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