UPDATED 2/17/11 12 a.m.

Editor’s Note: This story part of an ongoing a series about the use of overtime at the Hawaii Department of Public Safety. Civil Beat requested a list of overtime hours taken by each department employee in the 2009 and 2010 budget years. We published this series in December based on the information we received. In subsequent conversations with the department, we learned the document we were given lists hours paid. Employees were paid time-and-a-half for overtime. The stories have been updated to reflect that fact:

• A Surcharge on Safety: Outsized Overtime at the Department of Public Safety
• A Surcharge on Safety: Union Contract and Turnover Blamed for Overtime
• A Surcharge on Safety: As Overtime Piles Up, Department Caps Sick Day Use
• A Surcharge on Safety: Six Employees Claimed More Than 1,300 Hours of Overtime
• A Surcharge on Safety: 16 Employees Logged More Than 1,000 Overtime Hours
• A Surcharge on Safety: Sheriffs Earning More Than Hawaii’s Chief Justice?
• Public Safety Director Promises to ‘Address Overtime Issues Efficiently’

Thanks to overtime, some employees at the Hawaii Department of Public Safety earned more than department heads, judges — even the governor.

Civil Beat obtained records under the state’s open records law that show widespread overtime use at the department, which oversees the state’s jails and prisons system. Hawaii taxpayers paid out $19 million in overtime to Department of Public Safety workers over the last two budget years.

Employees whose base salaries are in the mid-$30,000 to $50,000 range earned six-figure salaries in fiscal 2009 and 2010, Civil Beat found. Some potentially earned higher salaries than Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who makes $117,312 a year.

The state’s open records law states that only the salary ranges of employees in collective bargaining units are public.

Overtime has been a long-standing problem for the department. State Auditor Marion Higa scrutinized its overtime use a decade ago. “The department continues to experience unusual patterns of sick leave and overtime costs are significant,” she wrote in a 2002 report.

In the two budget years Civil Beat examined, it found that 16 workers were paid for more than 1,000 hours of overtime, and six employees logged more than 1,300 hours of overtime in a single year. The high levels of overtime in the 2,200-employee department significantly increased these employees’ salaries.

In order to rack up 1,300 overtime hours, a person would have had to work more than 9 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year — weekends included.

While they were paid for the hours, it’s unlikely the public safety employees actually physically worked that many overtime hours. Most of the employees are covered by a United Public Workers labor contract that allows them to be paid both overtime and a salary for regular work shifts.

To put the salaries with overtime into perspective, Civil Beat looked at what top state officials are paid.

In some cases, corrections officers, clerical workers and sheriffs are potentially earning close to or more than Hawaii district judges, who are paid $128,296 annually.

One deputy sheriff, who claimed 1,636 hours of overtime, could potentially have made nearly as much as Honolulu’s chief of police, who is paid $136,236, and Hawaii’s chief justice, who is paid $156,727 a year.

A cook at the Halawa Correctional Facility earned about $79,000 after claiming 1,246 hours of overtime — not far off from what the state’s deputy public defenders earn at $89,580, and the deputy directors at the Department of Public Safety, who are paid $95,232.

Here’s a look at how much some of the high overtime earners made and comparable salaries in Hawaii state government.