SAN ANTONIO – Payroll records provided to the KSAT 12 Defenders confirm that three Bexar County Sheriff's Office deputies assigned to its community policing unit combined for more than $71,000 in overtime pay last year.
The records, turned over following an open records request, show that two of the deputies averaged more than $2,000 in OT pay a month in 2018.
"They're basically a Swiss Army knife for the agency that employs them," said Sheriff Javier Salazar.
When asked if the massive OT payouts to deputies Frank Perez, Inocencio Badillo and Mark Martinez demonstrated good financial stewardship by his agency, Salazar replied, "It's certainly money well spent."
The substantial payouts are more staggering when you consider that in order to even qualify for paid overtime, a deputy must first accrue 480 hours of compensatory time, the equivalent of 60 days off of work.
The three deputies, who Salazar said are assigned full time to the Sheriff's Community Oriented Resource and Education Unit, or SCORE, are all due large OT payouts this month as well.
A county spokeswoman said each deputy will receive at least $1,023.90 in OT in January.
"We know it's not a bottomless pit of money. We know it's not an ATM with unlimited access," said Salazar.
He provided a long list of recent enforcement actions by his agency in which he said the 12-person SCORE unit played a pivotal role.
Salazar said SCORE deputies recently broke up a transient camp in the Villages of Westcreek in far west Bexar County after a man was photographed walking through the neighborhood in broad daylight while holding a machete.
A resident of the neighborhood who spoke to the Defenders last week via telephone said SCORE deputies stayed at a homeowners association meeting until 10 p.m. recently and are doing quality work.
Salazar said the same SCORE deputies who attend HOA meetings may also work traffic in a school zone the same day, leading to long hours on the clock.
"They're very busy and their hours vary from day to day," said Salazar, who pointed out that the unit is also responsible for managing an expanding Explorers program and the agency's Sheriff's Reserve.
Late last year, SCORE deputies, along with covert operations personnel, uncovered a human trafficking operation at MGM Cabaret, located along Interstate 35 in far southwest Bexar County.
The investigation revealed that at least 10 girls and runaways were forced to have sex with men in San Antonio and across Texas.
"How do you put a price tag on that? We rescued a 16-year-old girl, literally," said Salazar.
As recently as this month, SCORE deputies, along with officials with the Bexar County Fire Marshal's Office, descended on the dilapidated Jasper Park Mobile Home Park off of Walzem Road, uncovering a long list of safety concerns.
The property has been the site of several recent arson fires.
Salazar said the property's owner has been ordered to come into compliance or will risk being shut down.
Owner John Ripley criticized the county's presence on his property, conceding that portions of his land are dilapidated while saying that the approach from law enforcement has been too heavy-handed.
"I don't believe it's money well spent," said Ripley. "They're shifting responsibilities onto me that I do not have the authority to correct."
When pressed on what he meant, Ripley said this month he was issued a citation from the fire marshal's office instructing him to remove all extension cords from the property.
Extension cords, which were present while the Defenders were on site, are used by tenants to illegally share electricity between mobile home units.
Ripley said after recently confiscating one cord, a tenant called BCSO and deputies who arrived at the scene told Ripley he had no right to take a tenant's property.
"They'd rather come after me because it's simple, and they've in so much as told me that," said Ripley.
Ripley showed the Defenders other citations from the fire marshal's office ordering him to correct structure clearance issues, to create a fire lane and a fire apparatus access plan and to add address identifiers on some of his lots.
SCORE is also spearheading an upcoming cleanup campaign at the Glen, a troubled neighborhood in northeast Bexar County.
Salazar declined to say from which specific parts of the budget money is taken from to pay deputy overtime, but that it comes from areas that have a smaller impact on BCSO operations.
He said that ideally, he would like to double the size of the SCORE unit to 24 deputies in the next budget cycle.
A county spokeswoman said each month paid overtime must be presented to Commissioners Court via the County Auditor's Office for approval.
Late last week BCSO administration implemented a new plan for staffing the perimeter of the Adult Detention Center, shifting some staffing from the law enforcement side to detention, in an effort to minimize overtime accumulation, according to a memo provided to the Defenders.