Documents reveal ‘appalling’ overtime at Kansas state mental hospital

? Employees at one of Kansas’ state mental hospitals are racking up significant overtime hours, internal reports show.

The Topeka Capital-Journal obtained four weeks of overtime data for Larned State Hospital’s nursing department covering much of December. An analysis by the newspaper showed that more than half of the approximately 400 employees in the west-central Kansas hospital’s nursing department worked overtime during those weeks. Each week, at least 50 workers accumulated more than 20 hours of overtime and some more than 40 hours.

“It’s absolutely appalling, but it’s not anything I haven’t heard before,” said Rebecca Proctor, director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, which has legislative proposals to try to improve working conditions at state hospitals. One calls for minimum staffing requirements.

Tim Keck, the newly named interim secretary of the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services, which oversees state hospitals, acknowledged the problem during a meeting this past week with workers. According to an audio recording obtained by The Capital-Journal, Keck unveiled a preliminary plan to cut the nursing vacancy rate, which he said is 40 percent, to 18 percent.

Cutting the rate by that percentage would involve hiring 89 new workers, Keck told employees. The department confirmed the meeting took place and that Keck intends to reduce the vacancy rate.

Staffing troubles aren’t new to Larned, which houses the Sexual Predator Treatment Program. State auditors in 2013 found staffing problems with the program. A subsequent audit found the situation had gotten worse, with vacancies increasing 8 percent from April 2013 to February 2015.

The Department of Aging and Disability Services said workers can be mandated to work overtime during each shift they are scheduled. No maximum number of hours exists, the agency said, but the hospital attempts not to force employees to work more than a double shift, or 16 hours.

The hospital first asks for volunteers to work overtime before mandates, the agency said. Department spokeswoman Angela de Rocha said most people with overtime of more than 40 or 50 hours are those who volunteer.

She said the hospital had already taken some steps to address employees’ most urgent concerns.

“The agency has been painfully aware of these staffing challenges, and it has become increasingly difficult to retain as well as to recruit staff,” de Rocha said in a statement.