Apopka officials are scrutinizing the city’s employee overtime practices after Mayor Nick Nesta said overtime had not been adequately monitored, as city records show the city paid more than $3.4 million in overtime last fiscal year. 

“Nobody was really monitoring it,” Nesta said in an interview with The Apopka Chief. “It was basically [used] as needed.”  

The city paid $3,418,890 in overtime in fiscal year 2024-25 and another $2,782,341 through July 23 of the current fiscal year, according to figures provided by city spokesperson Steven Montiero.  

City records show overtime spending has exceeded $3 million in each of the past three fiscal years: approximately $3.09 million in FY23, $3.46 million in FY24 and $3.42 million in FY25.  

Resident Rod Olsen, a member of Nesta’s transition team who regularly speaks during public comment at City Commission meetings, calculated approximately 124,000 overtime hours for FY25, or about 2,400 hours per week, using information he said he obtained from the city’s human resources department. He subsequently called attention to the issue in emails to city commissioners.  

“These numbers are too significant to simply accept as the ‘cost of doing business,’” he wrote in an email to the mayor, city commissioners and key staff.  

On Monday, Montiero said the city was pulling its own reports for the hours and had not confirmed the numbers Olsen cited.  

Nesta said the city needs greater oversight of overtime and must determine when continuing to pay overtime makes more financial sense than adding an employee — and when that equation changes. Hiring another employee carries additional expenses such as benefits and training, he said.  

Nesta connected the overtime issue to the organizational concerns behind the city’s hiring pause for most vacant positions through Oct. 1. He said overtime did not prompt the pause, which he said was not fiscally motivated. However, he cited overtime oversight as an example of broader problems with accountability and oversight that the city is reviewing.  

Fire and police account for substantial portions of the city’s overtime. The city’s FY25 report shows about $1.26 million in overtime for Fire Emergency Medical Service and about $104,000 for Fire Suppression. Police Field Services accounted for about $429,000, Police Support Services for $208,000 and Police Communications/Dispatch for about $337,000.  

Nesta said some fire department overtime is built into its scheduling structure and can be less expensive than hiring enough additional employees to eliminate it.   

In an emailed statement, the Apopka Police Department said overtime can result from court appearances, late arrests, criminal investigations and investigator call-outs because police work does not always fit within scheduled shifts.  

APD spokesperson Jennifer Rudich said that supervisors monitor overtime hours and that overtime would occur even if the department were fully staffed. City-sponsored and co-sponsored events can also generate overtime. Rudich said the department continues to look for ways to improve efficiency without affecting service to the community. 

The Apopka Fire Department did not respond to a request for comment by press time.  

In an interview with the Chief, Olsen said that some overtime is unavoidable, particularly in public safety, but questioned whether the city adequately monitors it.  

“Labor is a controllable expense. It’s your biggest expense,” he said. “You need to monitor it.” 

In an emailed response to the Chief, Commissioner Sam Ruth said he is concerned when overtime becomes a recurring operating expense rather than a tool for emergency or temporary needs. 

“We need to address the cause of the overtime, not blame the employees working it,” Ruth said.  

Ruth said the city should examine vacancies, staffing levels, scheduling and service demands and called for departmental reports showing overtime dollars, hours, vacancies, causes and trends. 

Vice Mayor Diane Velazquez also expressed concern in an email about overtime and said vacancies left by departing senior employees placed additional responsibilities on existing staff. She cited water-meter and backflow replacement, emergency work and fire department staffing as factors contributing to overtime.   

Velazquez said overtime should be monitored quarterly. She said overtime monitoring under the previous administration was not discussed with commissioners and that commissioners became aware of overtime expenditures through budget workshops. She said the city should determine what is causing overtime before deciding how to reduce it.   

In an interview, former Mayor Bryan Nelson said the fire department and public services accounted for most overtime during his administration. He said the city used employee overtime along with an outside contractor to replace malfunctioning water meters, cutting the share of non‑reading meters from around 30% to roughly 5%. 

Nelson said staffing vacancies generally were not a major driver of overtime during his administration. He said some overtime was unavoidable, including responses to water or sewer line breaks outside normal working hours. 

Looking back, however, Nelson said the city could have hired one or two additional public services employees and addressed the water-meter backlog sooner. 

“We could have reduced the amount of overtime for sure,” Nelson said.