Cedar Rapids police rack up hours, OT pay with flood patrol

Police Chief Greg Graham said the Police Department is not a gold mine, though he concedes some of his officers have been seeing heftier paychecks, thanks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The increased wages come from overtime pay working on the city's flood patrol, and it's not easy money.

“I don't know anyone who has said they're loving it,” the chief said. “Most of them are tired; you can see it in their faces. We're going on 19 months (of flood recovery), and some people have had very little time off.”

The upside is the pay, and 35 of the department's 200 sworn police officers have earned $20,000 or more in overtime on patrol in flood-damaged neighborhoods. Another 39 officers have brought in at least $10,000 in overtime. Four officers have earned more than $50,000 in overtime, with officer Mark Asplund, who earns $59,945 a year in regular wages, topping the list at $71,047 in extra wages. Senior, non-command officers, who are the most highly paid, get first shot at overtime duty, as spelled out in the department's union contract.

All this time-and-a-half income is paid for by FEMA disaster funds and totaled $2.3 million by the end of 2009 - $1 million from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2008, and $1.3 million in 2009. FEMA pays an additional amount to the city for the use of squad cars and fuel.

FEMA has agreed to fund the overtime flood patrols through November 2010. By then, Chief Graham said, he'll know if the patrols are still needed and if FEMA is willing to keep paying for them. FEMA has extended the flood-patrol commitment twice, he notes.

In justifying the need for an extra-duty flood patrol, Graham argues that most of those who lived in the city before the flood are still living here somewhere. So the calls for police help are not apt to change drastically - they were down 6 percent in 2009, he said - because the worst flood-hit sections of the city are all

but abandoned now. Yet the department still has the “added responsibility” to look after the flood-damaged sections, he said.

Graham said the extra patrols keep people out of unsafe structures and keep burglars and thieves from taking whatever is left inside them. The latter, he said, gives flood victims a psychological boost “that at least somebody is not going in there and stealing something more from me” than what the flood already has taken away.

Police officer Mike Wombacher, a 30-year veteran, ranks 15th among the department's officers for flood-patrol overtime pay. He's earned a total of $36,355 to date.

His typical regular shift is from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., and he often has worked flood-patrol duty from 2 to 6 a.m. At one point, he said, he was putting in an extra 16 to 20 hours a week.

“I can't work that many hours anymore,” the 52-year-old said. “It's aged me.”

His six children are all grown, but the extra money has allowed him to help pay college loans for his children. The extra work has helped out, Wombacher said, “and it still has let me do the job I love.”

According to new department data, the flood patrols led to the filing of 348 criminal charges and the arrest of another 54 people on warrants in the past six months.