MONTPELIER, Vt. -
The candidates for Vermont treasurer are vying to win the position that manages the state's surplus money.
Now the Republican challenger says too much overtime is being paid to some employees.
Republican challenger Wendy Wilton obtained the salaries and overtime pays of Treasurer office employees and is now asking the state to perform an independent audit of the treasurer's office. Employees in the Retirement System Re-Engineering Project tended to work much longer hours than others in the years 2010-2012, the period released.
"That it's this large really calls into question whether the project is being managed right. What's happening with it? Where are these costs being expensed? And those are the answers that I'd like to have,"
Those 9,000 overtime hours across the last three years was worth more than $250,000 of work. But Treasurer Beth Pearce had this to say about challenger Wendy Wilton's request for an independent audit of the department to determine whether there was a mismanagement of money.
"The Treasurer's office gets an independent audit every two years. It's part of the state annual audit. There are no findings. We've done the correct things. This is an example of election politics that is a waste of tax payer money," Treasurer Pearce said.
We talked with former Vermont Treasurer Jeb Spaulding about whether the high overtime numbers were normal and really earned. Vermont has recently seen overtime scandal after the case of state police officer Jim Deegan, who's been accused of lying on his time sheet.
"This was not a situation like in some other areas of state government where people didn't know the overtime was being earned or it wasn't actually being worked. In this situation it was all supervised, people knew what was going, people knew it was a lot of work and I think it was entirely appropriate," Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding said.
Treasurer Pearce did confirm that all the employees had worked the number of hours stated in the release.
Both Secretary Spaulding and Treasurer Pearce noted that undertaking this retirement program required a lot of extra work from a select few of the people experienced in that field. Pearce also said that payroll and overtime hours have gone down since she took over as Vermont's Treasurer.
Wilton mentioned that as Treasurer of the City of Rutland there had been very few overtime hours but precise solutions to managing the Retirement system better were not offered.
Treasurer Pearce said they're still working on making the project run more efficiently.
