Overtime costs for investigators now have grown to more than 24 percent of their payroll last year. That's compared with just 2.2 percent of investigator payroll in 1999.

City Human Resources Director Ken Nakamatsu said the high overtime raises questions, and may warrant further investigation to see if last year's increases were strictly because of staffing. The agency had five fewer investigators in 2004 than it did the year before.

City Councilman Charles Djou sees the increase in premium pay as another example that the city agency is mismanaged and needs a major overhaul, while a key commission administrator said the ramped-up hours show a commitment to getting the work done during a difficult time.

Djou, a frequent critic of the commission, said he finds the skyrocketing overtime alarming. "This is a clear statement of mismanagement when you had overtime just basically going through the roof year after year after year," he said.

Djou said he could understand a year or two of high overtime but not such a steep climb. "What disturbs me is there's a clear trend that overtime has gone up and it's gone up substantially," he said.

The agency oversees nearly 1,500 bars, clubs, restaurants and other businesses that sell liquor. The agency gets its money from those it licenses, from fees and fines paid by the businesses with a proposed budget this year of $3.7 million.

Commission staff said administrator Wallace Weatherwax was unavailable to comment because he was sick.

However, chief investigator John Carroll said one of the big increases in overtime — in 2002 — was the year the agency lost a number of investigators to indictments on charges of racketeering, bribery, extortion and related counts.

And the year of the highest overtime — 2004 — also saw the fewest investigators working: 20, down from 25 the year before.

Carroll said the agency has added programs and is working hard to rebuild its credibility.

The more that investigators work, the greater the agency's potential to raise more money for operations, he said. "We collect it back in revenue from the licensees," he said. "It's not just money going out of the pocket and never coming back."

While it's true that the agency has the potential to boost its revenues, the years of highest overtime do not show a corresponding increase in the number of citations or the largest number of fines. In fact, the number of citations and the dollar amount of fines have dropped roughly in half since 1994, the city's records show.

No standard

City Budget and Fiscal Services Director Mary Patricia Waterhouse said there is no government standard for how much overtime is too much. However, she said the city monitors the overtime paid by each agency.

"We're asking the departments to go look at it and make sure that all of the overtime is necessary," she said. "You want to keep it down."

Waterhouse said she believes the Liquor Commission's percentage of overtime has risen to be among the biggest users of city overtime. Traditionally, the bigger overtime budgets belong to the police and fire departments and other agencies that work around the clock.

Nakamatsu, the human-resources director, said the commission's overtime more than doubled from 1999 to 2001; overtime grew from 2.2 percent of investigator payroll to 5.5 percent. Meanwhile, the number of investigators remained the same.

In 2002, overtime surged again, to 13.7 percent of the payroll. In 2003, it rose to 19 percent of payroll, then 24 percent in 2004.

Nakamatsu also wondered if hiring more workers might be a better solution than working fewer workers for more hours.

Nakamatsu noted that overtime also can significantly boost other long-term costs, such as retirement benefits. For example, if someone earned $50,000 in regular pay plus another $50,000 in overtime in one year, the government would calculate retirement based on $100,000 for that year.

Rising salaries

Commission investigators' pay has risen over the decade from a monthly pay rate that ranged from $2,020 to $5,000 in 1994, to $2,400 to $6,086 since 2002.

High payroll costs are the latest issue to arise with the city Liquor Commission, which has been plagued by criminal convictions of staff, ethical inquiries, a continuing federal investigation and various allegations of corruption.

Djou continues to call for the dismissal of both Weatherwax and Carroll. Both men said they will not step down and are working to make changes.

"It really shows somebody's not minding the store," Djou said. "Not only is this agency corrupt, but it's mismanaged."

Carroll said the agency has added duties, including a retail-store sting operation working jointly with the Honolulu Police Department. That operation involved working with underage teens to buy liquor.

Carroll said the stings are effective but require a lot of staff time. "Those operations, it takes manpower, the aftermath, report-writing," he said. "If you generate violations, then you generate court time or hearings."

He said the commission has tried to establish a better working relationship with HPD because of the accusations of prostitution and other violations in bars and other businesses. "We made the guys put in the extra hours to get to this point," Carroll said.

"Overtime is a problem with many city agencies," Carroll said. And he said his agency is working to rebuild credibility and working to commit more resources to get the job done. In addition, there are still 12 investigator positions vacant, he said.

Djou said the agency needs reform. "It's been over a month since the auditor released his report and nothing has happened. There's been a lot of talk but there has not been one single rule change, not a single personnel change."

Djou did hear the agency had proposed to change its name, a suggestion he finds trivial.

"The problem with the Liquor Commission isn't the name, the problem is the management and the culture," Djou said. "If they did a good job, there would be no need to change the name."