Facilities Management Overtime Reduction

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

Cook County as well as many other Counties throughout the nation has been challenged to cut expenses and to do more with less. The Department of Facilities Management is one of the county’s largest departments and carries the responsibility for 11,742,024 square feet. The square footage includes one of the largest jail complexes in the nation, a juvenile temporary detention center, courthouses, high rise buildings, warehouses, parking structures and highway facilities. We maintain these properties 24/7. To meet these challenges Facilities Management has worked to reduce overtime through efficient scheduling, utilizing 2nd shift employees, absentee management, hiring promptly as Operations staff retire/resign, timely follow up in order to expedite return to work, a stringent overtime approval process, increase controlled preventive maintenance shutdowns, and most importantly scrutinizing that overtime is expended only after all other options have been exhausted. In order to utilize these alternatives we have worked closely with the trade unions to meet our goals of reducing overtime expenses. Since these methods were introduced overtime expenses have been reduced annually as follows: 2011 OT Expense $868,663.37, 2012 OT Expense $839,028.89, 2013 OT Expense $830,767.19, 2014 OT Expense $487,921.10, 2015 OT Expense $397,500.00.