Westmoreland County has an overtime problem.

TribLive reporting shows regular reliance on overtime has pushed some employees’ earnings far beyond their base salaries.

In 2025 alone, county workers made more than $7.2 million in overtime. The largest share went to the prison, where overtime exceeded $2.2 million. Dispatchers at the county’s 911 center made nearly $1.3 million in additional pay and nurses at Westmoreland Manor more than $1.1 million.

Individual totals can be striking. One corrections officer pulled down more than $101,000 in overtime on top of a salary of about $63,000.

This isn’t about wrongdoing. It reflects staffing shortages in departments that must operate around the clock. But it also highlights a problem that cannot be treated as routine.

Controller Jeffrey Balzer pointed to the most immediate concern.

“We have employees who are constantly working double shifts, so safety is a main concern,” he said. “It could create liability for everybody.”

Double shifts are not a sustainable use of human resources. They create a risk to the health and safety not only to the employee but also to the people around them or the people being served.

The departments with the most overtime are the ones where employees being alert is critical — corrections officers supervising inmates, dispatchers handling emergency calls and nurses caring for vulnerable residents.

There is also an issue of unfairness to the employees.

That might seem confusing when there are people making more than double their annual take. But your paycheck needs to be something you can depend upon, and overtime is not something you can trust.

Overtime can disappear with a new hire, a policy change or a shift in scheduling. It can fluctuate week to week. Building a household budget around unpredictable extra hours is not stability. It is a gamble.

There is also a financial reality.

When overtime becomes a pattern, it stops being a short-term solution and becomes the operating model.

That has consequences beyond the immediate payroll. Employee pensions are based on the average earnings in the final years of work. Large overtime spikes can inflate those numbers and increase long-term costs that taxpayers must support.

But counties like Westmoreland are not operating in a vacuum.

Pennsylvania places significant responsibilities on counties, including operating jails, maintaining emergency dispatch centers and, in some cases, running long-term care facilities such as Westmoreland Manor. Those services must operate 24 hours a day regardless of how difficult hiring becomes.

The state also is responsible for county staffing cuts that happened amid the extended 2025 budget impasse.

When staffing shortages hit, overtime is the tool that keeps the system functioning.

But it should not be a solution. It is a problem that takes two paths: One is burnout and turnover; the other is overtime and costs.

Overtime can fill a gap. It can handle emergencies. It can help workers earn extra money.

But when it becomes routine, it signals a deeper problem — one that affects employees, taxpayers and the people who rely on those services every day.