SCRANTON — Efforts to slash overtime spending at Lackawanna County Prison continue to prove successful, with the prison using less than half of its overtime budget for the year as of late September.
Through the pay period ending Sept. 23 — the 19th of 26 pay periods in 2025 — overtime costs at the prison on North Washington Avenue in Scranton totaled almost $1.2 million, Warden Tim Betti’s most recent overtime comparison chart shows. That puts the prison on pace to finish 2025 well below the $2.5 million county officials budgeted for prison overtime this year after spending about $2.9 million on prison overtime in 2024.
Lackawanna County Prison in Scranton on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Curtailing overtime costs at the prison and in other areas of county government remains a goal for the county still battling financial headwinds in pursuit of lasting fiscal stability. PFM Group Consulting LLC, the grant-supported consultant that earlier this year released a five-year financial management plan for the county, has called on officials to target overtime spending as part of a broader effort to mitigate costs.
While overtime represents a relatively modest amount of the county’s total general fund budget, it is a cost PFM said the county could reduce with targeted action. Efforts to bring down prison overtime spending began to bear fruit in the latter part of 2024, with overtime costs there averaging about $64,150 per pay period over the final eight pay periods of last year compared with an average of about $117,854 per pay period over the initial eight pay periods of 2024.
The positive trend has continued in 2025, with this year’s overtime averaging about $62,709 per pay period as of late last month. It averaged about $111,676 per pay period last year and about $95,619 per pay period in 2023, per the comparison chart.
Lackawanna County Prison in Scranton on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Touting the cost reduction this past summer, officials attributed some of the success to efforts to minimize staff vacancies at the prison. Betti said in a July press release that the prison had been filling part-time positions more aggressively, using part-time corrections officers “to fill in for the shifts of full-time officers who are out on workers’ compensation and to fill in for full-time vacancies.”
Officials also increased the time required for corrections officers to notify management of their use of vacation time, enabling better shift planning, and said the improved tracking of inmates’ statuses and other population-monitoring initiatives had enabled the prison to close one minimum security unit.
Asked about the overtime reduction again last week, Betti said it’s attributable to “maintaining as full of a complement as we can of full-time employees” and to a reduction in “FMLA usage” by corrections officers. FMLA usage refers to leave taken under the Family and Medical Leave Act, including intermittent FMLA where leave is taken in smaller increments.
“So the two things combined have really made a difference,” Betti said.
The roughly $181 million preliminary 2026 county budget that Commissioners Bill Gaughan and Chris Chermak unveiled last week reduces the line item for prison overtime by $500,000 next year, from $2.5 million to $2 million.
It also doubles the line item for sheriff’s office overtime, from $700,000 this year to $1.4 million in 2026, almost restoring it to 2024 levels. The 2025 budget reduced that line item from $1.45 million the year prior to $700,000 this year, an ambitious figure the office has already exceeded.
Sheriff’s Office overtime for 2025 totaled about $1.09 million as of earlier this month, figures provided by the county show.
Monday update
THEN: Lackawanna County’s financial consultants tasked officials with reducing overtime spending.
NOW: Overtime costs at the county prison remain well below budget.