
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas psychiatric hospital that’s had a dramatic staff shortage in recent years spent more on overtime pay last year than any other state agency or facility.
The Wichita Eagle reports Larned State Hospital paid its roughly 600 employees $3.8 million in overtime during fiscal 2016, which ended in June. That amounts to nearly a quarter of the state’s total overtime costs for the year.
The next-closest agency was the Kansas Department of Transportation, which has about three times more staff members but spent about $2.1 million on overtime.
Tim Keck, interim director of the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services, says overtime hours at Larned have been steadily falling since he took the helm in January.