Do some deputies work too much?

Over the past five years, Mike Miner has made a six-figure income, earning between $123,213 and $187,787 a year. He's not a doctor, lawyer or software engineer. He's a patrol deputy with the King County Sheriff's Office.

Last year, Miner more than doubled his base salary of about $61,000 by working 1,755 hours of overtime, an average of 34 hours a week. The approximately $90,000 in overtime brought his total gross earnings to $151,174.

Over the past five years, Miner has made about $735,000 — but only about $300,000 of it was his base salary.

As a result of the overtime hours logged by Miner and a handful of other patrol deputies, Sheriff Sue Rahr is considering placing limits on overtime. She is concerned the long hours, particularly when worked consecutively, could compromise a deputy's safety as well as productivity.

"We're looking at how to set limits on overtime, limits on contiguous hours of overtime work," Rahr said. "I am more concerned with an officer working too many hours in a row than the total amount."

Sgt. John Urquhart, sheriff's spokesman, said fewer than 10 patrol officers are working what he called "excessive" overtime hours. He attributes the large amount of overtime worked by some to vacancies within the department over the past few years. At the end of October, for example, the department had 21 vacancies and 54 officers who were on leave for medical, maternity, military or other reasons.

The office has stayed within its budget for overtime pay, but Rahr is "looking at how do we fairly judge what is the impact on safety and productivity," she said. She plans to research standards at other police agencies and research productivity within the department.

The president of the King County Police Officers Guild, Steve Eggert, said in an e-mail that the sheriff's office "has not, to date, asked the Guild to bargain over the issue," and that the Guild would make a demand to negotiate any changes in the overtime policy.

According to the current Guild contract, there is no limit to the amount of overtime a deputy can work. Managers use common sense, said Rahr.

The two patrol officers who have worked the most overtime in the past five years include Miner, who works in the sheriff's northeast precinct; and Deputy Jeff Dorsch from the southeast precinct. Miner didn't return calls for comment.

Dorsch earned $136,526 last year — his base salary is about $61,000 — after working 1,421 hours of overtime, or about 27 additional hours a week. Dorsch declined to comment for this report.

"We have a couple of officers that, quite frankly, make themselves available during their off-duty hours for overtime," Rahr said. "When we can't find anyone to fill an overtime shift, it's a benefit to know there's someone [the department] can call."

Miner and Dorsch are longtime deputies with the sheriff's office, Urquhart said. In total, their 2004 overtime pay represented 3.3 percent of the sheriff's $5 million overtime budget. The office employs 721 deputies.

"I suspect one of the reasons that they continue to work the overtime is you kind of get used to that kind of lifestyle," Urquhart said. "If you're making $129,000 five years in a row, how do you cut back?"

Deputies are paid overtime to appear in court, for training and for performing mandatory and voluntary extra work. The sheriff is particularly concerned with deputies who volunteer for extra patrol shifts in addition to their regular weekly schedule. Deputies sign up for those extra shifts, which are created by vacancies and leaves, on a first-come, first-served basis.

During those overtime patrol shifts, deputies are responsible for community policing, writing tickets, looking for suspicious behavior and responding to 911 calls. Deputies on patrol might have to make life-and-death decisions, Urquhart said.

"Safety and productivity are the two issues — both public and officer's safety," Urquhart said.

Metropolitan King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, chairwoman of the law, justice and human-services committee, questioned the heavy overtime hours logged by some deputies.

"I just can't imagine any reason why that would be OK," she said. "We need them to be on top of their game, and no one can work that much overtime and not expect the effects of fatigue and burnout."

Patterson said she and Rahr have already discussed changing the way overtime hours are distributed.

Law-enforcement agencies deal with overtime differently. At the Bellevue Police Department, for example, "That many hours is unheard of," said spokesman Michael Chiu.

The Seattle Police Department does not limit overtime, but the Everett police and Pierce County Sheriff's Office do. In Everett, officers cannot work more than 16 hours in a row without a mandatory eight-hour break.

Whether heavy overtime can affect a police officer's safety depends on several variables, according to Bryan Vila, a former police officer and professor at Washington State University who wrote the book "Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue."

"We have a good, solid body of research that indicates that not getting enough sleep and staying awake for too long at a time makes people more likely to become involved in accidents, be injured on the job. It also impairs their decision-making," Vila said.

From looking at surveys elsewhere, Vila said 1,700 hours, like that worked by Miner last year, is in the "higher range." The fatigue factor in the sheriff's office depends on how long the deputies' shifts are, and how much sleep they're getting between shifts, Vila said. But "when we depend on them to make decisions sometimes based on very little information and sometimes in very difficult situations, having to be overly tired is one of the last things we want."

The King County Sheriff's Office has had trouble managing its overtime in the past. In 2000, the King County Auditor criticized the department for spending more on overtime in spite of a drop in officer workload.

In 2003, the department paid $7 million to settle a class-action suit filed by employees who weren't paid for overtime within the legal period.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com