Police Overtime Pay Causes Flap-This Day In Norwood History-June 17, 1981

Selectmen Spar Over Fat Paychecks Following Around-The-Clock Housebreak Investigation

One policeman got $536 in overtime pay last week. Another got $337. And two selectmen say that’s too much. “It’s not right for one man to work 35 hours overtime,” Selectman Walter J Dempsey said last night, adding, “536 bucks for my money is too much overtime in one week.” He was supported by fellow selectman William F. Butters on what they thought were excessively fat paychecks.

But Chairman John F. Kinnaly sided with Town Manager John J. Carroll in defending the work as justifying the overtime. Dempsey cited payroll records that showed Sgt. Thomas Michienzi, court prosecutor, getting $536 in overtime and Detective Michael Broyer another $337. Payroll records showed two other policemen at $237 and $233 in overtime pay and seven others picking up approximately $95 each in overtime for an average of an extra eight hours. The police payroll for the week ending June 11 listed total overtime of $3,128. Butters projected $162,700 as the annual rate if the overtime continued.

Carroll, the police department administrator, defended the overtime, saying Michienzi and Broyer worked on an intensive 24-hour investigation that produced results. He said the two men worked around the clock at one time investigating a series of housebreaks now being solved. He added that 35 housebreaks had been investigated, along with 25 bicycle thefts.

Butters pointed out that the two men are among eight department men paid a nine percent differential for special assigned duty. He said he will continue to check payroll records to see if there is unequal overtime. Carroll said ordinarily he didn’t like to see “such heavy overtime” but he said he talked with Acting Chief John J Wall and Michienzi about it, and the department is “extremely shorthanded,” with four to five men out on injured leave fairly regularly. He said this fact has undermined his directives to hold police overtime down.

Apparently unimpressed by Carrolls explanations, Dempsey, a former FBI agent, wondered if “we only have two men down there (at the police station).” He said. “I myself don’t think anybody is that essential.”

Carroll said Michienzi took responsible action in pressing the intensive investigation, which also entailed paid court appearances for him and Broyer. Carroll also distributed a copy of a letter from Walpole Police Chief Armando J Betro praising Michienzi and Broyer along with Walpole detectives for work leading to recent arrests of five juveniles in connection with numerous housebreaks in Walpole and Norwood. Betro said their persistent investigations of bicycle thefts in Norwood June 4 led Michienzi and Broyer to information that ended in the arrests. Their “professionalism not only reflects credit upon themselves but upon the Norwood Police Department as a whole,” Betro stated.

Carroll saw Broyer and Michienzi as two fine police officers who should be given credit “rather than criticized for milking the town, which they were not doing.” Equally staunch support came from Kinnaly, who was “appalled” at Dempsey and Butters for their remarks. Kinnaly, also a former FBI agent, said, “Police work, for your information, and in particular, detective work, is not an 8 to 5 job.” He termed it “just unbelievable” to complain about police work done to protect the town. He warned that restricting overtime for detectives would lead to a “field day” for hoodlums in town. Kinnaly expressed dismay about worrying about “nickles and dimes” in the face of the “money we blow in this town.” “Their record indicates a tremendous performance, and we’re criticizing them,” Kinnaly said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

The nine percent differential is not a substitute for overtime, Kinnaly said, but extra pay for a higher level of work. Kinnaly said it would be “demeaning and demoralizing to call Broyer and Michienzi in to justify their overtime.” Carroll had suggested this if selectmen wanted to press the issue. But Butters said he did not intend to “put them on the rack.”

The discussion ended when the board approved letters of commendation to several police officers, including Michienzi and Broyer and Patrolmen Robert Baker and Thomas O’Toole for recent investigations.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger