The all-hands response to Hurricane Sandy cost the city at least $154.1 million in overtime — and that doesn’t count what was spent at the city’s hard-hit Housing Authority and public hospitals.
The Independent Budget Office released the numbers yesterday, noting that figures were not yet available for housing and hospitals.
Both suffered extensive damages and are likely to run up significant additional OT bills.
Two agencies accounted for the bulk of the spending between Oct. 29, when the historic storm struck, and Dec. 24, the last payroll period measured by the IBO.
Topping the chart was the NYPD, which shelled out $70.9 million during the period.
Police spokesman Paul Browne pointed out that a large portion of the department was put on 12-hour tours, from 911 operators to traffic agents assigned to blacked-out intersections.
In addition to their normal patrol duties, cops also found themselves guarding gas stations 24 hours a day during the panic over fuel supplies.
“We created our own bus system to get flood victims to shelters,” recalled Browne. “We created a separate transportation plan so that 911 operators, most of whom rely on mass transit, could get to the 911 center in downtown Brooklyn. Sandy put a big hurt on overtime, but it’s reimbursed by FEMA.”
In fact, the city expects to get reimbursed for almost the entire tab. To ensure they had the documentation, officials created a special code to log in overtime exclusively associated with the storm.
Reimbursement for OT would be part of the second installment of federal hurricane aid — a package of $51 billion that will go to Congress for a vote on Jan. 15.
The Sanitation Department came in second on the OT list at $53.6 million.
Like the cops, sanitation workers labored through continuous 12-hour shifts picking up tons of debris from the city’s storm-ravaged neighborhoods.
No other agency broke the eight-figure mark. The Fire Department had the third highest OT total at $8.6 million.
“The departments that showed the most overtime were not surprising,” said Maria Doulis of the Citizens Budget Commission.
In the last fiscal year, which ended on June 30, the city’s total OT was a record $1.275 billion.
Sandy will undoubtedly propel this year’s projected $1.1 billion overtime expenditure to yet another record.
But it won’t be the most ever spent in unexpected OT. That title belongs to fiscal 2002, when the city incurred $616 million more in overtime than it had budgeted to deal with the fallout from 9/11.
Bloomberg spokesman Mark LaVorgna said the administration’s policy from the start was to spend what was needed and worry about reimbursements later.
“The colossal OT costs demonstrate a portion of that effort,” he said.
Meanwhile, the House and Senate yesterday passed a bill to shore up the depleted federal flood-insurance fund with $9.7 billion to pay claims from the hurricane.
The flood-insurance bill passed in an overwhelming 357-67 House vote and in a unanimous Senate voice vote. It headed to President Obama to be signed into law.
Additional reporting by S.A. Miller
david.sefiman@nypost.com
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