Office of Inspector General finds BART needs to better manage overtime

Friday, September 26, 2025

Office of Inspector General finds BART needs to better manage overtime

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Office of the Inspector General found BART needs to manage its overtime better.

The OIG's findings were presented at a BART Board of Directors meeting Thursday. It's an issue I-Team reporter Melanie Woodrow first looked into five years ago.

The board of directors has agreed to accept all of the OIG's recommendations. But the report was not without critique, both from board members and the union representing BART employees.

According to the Office of the Inspector General, in Fiscal Year 2024, BART spent $80 million on overtime costs. Fifty-seven employees doubled their salaries through overtime.

It's a question the ABC7 News I-TEAM first asked in 2020. "Why is there so much overtime pay?"

The I-Team noticed one station agent worked 361 out of 365 days at more than 40 different stations in 2018, making over $114,000 in overtime.

At the time, Woodrow interviewed BART's Deputy General Manager Michael Jones.

"Why not hire more employees to cut back on some of that overtime pay?" said Woodrow in 2020.

"In almost every case, it's more financially sound for the district to pay an employee overtime than to hire an additional headcount," said Jones at the time.

Now, five years later, an OIG audit has found BART needs to further mitigate its overtime costs.

"Overtime is gonna happen. You can't run BART without overtime. But at the end of the fiscal year, you want to have your costs pretty close to what your budget was and not having these huge variances. But if you do have huge variances, being able to speak to that," said Inspector General Claudette Biermeret.

According to the report, BART employees were able to substantially increase their overtime earnings by working overtime shifts, taking on extra duties, working alternative schedules, taking paid vacations or sick days on a regularly scheduled work day and then working a day off as overtime and not taking their full paid breaks or lunches.

Their findings were not received well by BART Chapter President SEIU Local 1021 John Arantes.

"No more working lunch and breaks. We'll walk away from the job, OK. And then you can single-track," said Arantes at the meeting.

The report also found BART needs to improve its overtime fraud prevention and detection.

"First, you call them crooks, criminals. You attack them," Arantes said. "We don't decide when we work. We don't go 'No, no, sorry. I can't come on grave shift. I'm showing up on Monday.'"

Directors were critical of the report as well, questioning the numbers used for comparisons in the report's findings, given the impact the pandemic had on BART's operations.

"This report is not as good as I would have wanted it to be in order for us to make some concrete differences in the future," said Director Melissa Hernandez, doubling down on the idea that BART is relying on workers to provide a near-perfect system, while also scrutinizing the hours they work to deliver.

"We burn out our employees to meet and exceed the quality and level of service we are setting for them," said Director Janice Li.

Arantes said the union will fight for BART employees.

"We are not slaves or indentured servants. We have rights. We work OT and you shall pay us for the work we do," said Arantes.

One of the OIG's findings was that some employees are having to approve dozens -- if not hundreds -- of other employees' time, suggesting it decreases the chance of detecting misconduct. BART's director of Performance and Audit pushed back, saying if someone works their regular hours, there's nothing to approve.

Take a look at more stories by the ABC7 News I-Team.