NYPD brass have grilled the department’s two biggest overtime earners – an officer and a detective who work as partners in The Bronx – to assess whether their arrest records warrant the long hours they’ve spent on the job, sources say.
Records obtained by The Post show that Detective Earl Lynch III beefed up his $61,670 salary with $67,092 in overtime between July 2003 and last June.
His partner, Officer Adrian Uruci, topped off his $54,048 in base pay with $64,971 in OT during the same time period.
And the records show that the third- and fourth-highest NYPD overtime earners work the same midnight shift with Lynch and Uruci at the busy 48th Precinct in The Bronx’s Belmont section.
Lynch and Uruci were questioned about their hours in the past two months, sources said. And police brass pored over their arrest records to see whether they padded their hours or deliberately made arrests late in their shifts so they could spend several hours in court arraigning suspects.
No wrongdoing was uncovered, sources said.
Relatives of the partners say they are aggressive cops who took many violent criminals off the streets and who are then required to appear in court lest criminal charges get dropped.
News of the over-the-top Bronx paydays comes as the Police Department’s OT tab for uniformed personnel hit $360 million last fiscal year, up by about $26 million from the previous year, Independent Budget Office figures show.
It also comes as the NYPD probes an overtime scandal last November in Brooklyn, where up to 50 narcotics detectives and supervisors were reassigned amid allegations they put in for hours not worked.
NYPD spokeswoman Gerry Falcon declined to comment on the probe, but said, “All commands have overtime-monitoring programs to ensure members comply with department directives.”
Overtime at the Correction and Sanitation departments also rose last year, while the FDNY trimmed $20 million from its OT outlays, records show.
Sanitation’s OT tab has almost tripled over the past two years, rising from $35 million in 2002 to $78.9 million in 2003 and $91.2 million in fiscal 2004.
Department spokesman Keith Mellis attributed the rise to layoffs of more than 500 workers and the increase in snowfall.
The top five sanitation OT kings all worked in Brooklyn. Sanitation supervisor Alfred Santarpia, a 23-year veteran, collected the most OT last year, adding $42,806 to his $65,810 salary working from the department’s Ralph Avenue garage.
“You take it when it’s there,” said Santarpia, 50, of Staten Island. “We were short of supervisors, but they just graduated a new class a couple of months ago so the overtime’s stopped.”
In contrast, OT at the FDNY fell nearly $21 million to $157.1 million in fiscal 2004.
The drop in OT is the result of the FDNY’s hiring of 3,020 new firefighters since 9/11 and a decrease in the number of Bravest on medical leave, said spokeswoman Virginia Lam.
But the hiring frenzy was a boon to the FDNY’s top OT earners, who all taught at the department’s academy on Randalls Island.
The Department of Correction spent $66.8 million in fiscal 2004, up from almost $50 million the previous year.
Spokesman Tom Antenen said a new program to supervise suicidal inmates, an increase in military leave, a higher-than-expected attrition rate and the 2003 blackout caused the jump in OT.
Overtime by agency: Fiscal 2004 Difference from ’03
NYPD: $360 million* Up $26 million
FDNY: $157.1 million Down $20.8 million
Sanitation: $91.2 million Up $12.3 million
Corrections: $66.8 million Up $16.7 million
Total: $675.1 million Up $ 34.2 million
*Source: Independent Budget Office
Top overtime earners: Salary OvertimeTotal
NYPD: Det. Earl Lynch III $61,670 $67,092 $128,762
Officer Adrian Uruci $54,048 $64,971 $119,019
FDNY: Fireman Michael Ripoll $54,048 $60,940 $114,998
Lt. David Hurley $69,300 $59,484 $128,784
Sanitation: Supv. Alfred Santarpia $65,810 $42,806 $108,616
Collector Gerard Weber $48,996 $42,453 $ 91,449
Corrections: Off. William Sheridan $54,048 $34,488 $88,536
Asst. Warden Carmine Labruzzo
$79,547 $32,634 $112,181
Source: NYC Office of Payroll Administration