Overtime Pay Will Be County's Biggest Cost For Fay

Overtime pay for the many Highlands County employees who did, or still are doing, extra duty to deal with Tropical Storm Fay will be by far the biggest cost to the county.

That is the assessment of Bernis Gainer, director of the county's Office of Management and Budget.

Gainer has opened a "project number" so that all costs, including overtime pay and purchase of supplies, associated with the storm can be tracked.

Asked Wednesday afternoon for an estimate on the cost, Gainer said he couldn't possibly even give a rough estimate until at least Sept. 1.

"It's just over 24 hours after the eye (of the tropical storm) was over our county, and so it's not possible at this time to even guess at what the numbers will be," Gainer said.

Many of the county commission's 405 full-time employees worked long shifts, some of 12 hours or more, manning various emergency response jobs on Tuesday as Fay pounded the county with from six to 10 inches of rain.

Dozens of county employees were expected to work overtime hours on Wednesday and beyond as they tried to help people hit hard by flooding in the southern portion of the county, especially the Lorida area, the Kissimmee River Estates Subdivision, Arbuckle Creek Road and several low lying areas at Leisure Lakes.

"The personnel cost (in overtime pay will be pretty substantial," Gainer said. But, he said, he couldn't even guess at the cost now "because you could have crews out there working 12-hour shifts and we won't know about it here (OMB office) until the time sheets are turned in."

Also, Kyle Green, the new director of the county's Road and Bridge Department, said Wednesday he could not estimate how many overtime hours his employees will have to work to help residents hurt by flooding.