This story was printed in partnership with New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom investigating New York state politics. Join their e-newsletter right here.
After 15 years on the job, a New York Metropolis social service employee discovered himself lugging his laptop computer to choir apply at evening, pressured to work time beyond regulation for the primary time in his profession.
The staffer was ultimately kicked out of the group final yr, as a result of he stored having to work throughout rehearsal. “I didn’t wish to do time beyond regulation however they informed us we had no alternative,” he mentioned.
One other eligibility specialist at a Brooklyn unit processing Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) purposes mentioned a lot of her colleagues have retired or give up in the course of the pandemic, and the company has made few hires to switch them. Consequently, she typically works time beyond regulation.
“Town must have sufficient workers to deal with all these new instances,” mentioned the 13-year company veteran. Each civil servants requested anonymity to debate work situations.
Their tales seize the pressure on the metropolis’s Division of Social Providers (DSS), the place time beyond regulation has surged as a shrunken workers scrambles to course of a rising tide of profit purposes.
The company has confronted one one trial after one other in recent times: rising caseloads tied to the pandemic, the inflow of migrants looking for asylum, housing instability, and rising poverty. To make issues worse, it would quickly must implement the Trump administration’s new work necessities for SNAP — a momentous endeavor for employees, who should monitor compliance, confirm documentation, and assist recipients discover employment.
But there are fewer arms to deal with all that work. Practically 12% of positions at DSS are vacant; in November, the not-quite-11,000-strong company had 1,439 job openings, making it one of many emptiest departments in metropolis authorities.
Consequently, the company has needed to ask extra of its current workers. Additional time pay on the Human Assets Administration — the wing of the Division of Social Providers that handles advantages — has greater than tripled since 2014, from lower than $22 million to almost $75 million in the newest fiscal yr. (The height was in 2024, at $110 million.)
Common pay solely elevated by 14% over that interval — properly underneath the speed of inflation.
Company officers required rank-and-file eligibility specialists to work at the least 4 hours of necessary time beyond regulation every week final yr. Many labored way more: in the newest fiscal yr, 87 DSS workers earned as a lot or extra in time beyond regulation as they did in base wage. Compelled time beyond regulation may cause burnout and lead staffers to give up, deepening the shortages that necessitated time beyond regulation within the first place.
Staffing challenges have bedeviled many metropolis companies, not simply DSS — a actuality set to confront the incoming administration of Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, which has pledged formidable new packages throughout metropolis authorities.
However their penalties are on significantly stark show within the social providers company. As Mayor Eric Adams and different metropolis leaders tout balanced budgets and post-pandemic restoration, the reliance on time beyond regulation on the Division of Social Providers tells a distinct story — considered one of a workforce operating out of hours to present to New Yorkers most in want.
Sluggish Service
Among the many company’s frontline workers are eligibility specialists, who’re charged with ensuring new and present candidates qualify for the general public advantages.
In a February report, town’s Unbiased Finances Workplace famous that the HRA had misplaced a whole bunch of eligibility specialists since 2019. And final October, the IBO discovered that greater than 40% of the lively eligibility specialists processing money help or SNAP purposes had lower than three years of expertise.
Eligibility specialists are anticipated to get by way of every new case in roughly an hour, the Brooklyn staffer mentioned, and supervisors carefully monitor what number of they course of.
The variety of metropolis residents receiving SNAP rose barely over the past yr and stays at near-record ranges. The quantity receiving money help in June was up 8% from only a yr earlier.
The division has struggled to course of these purposes inside the federally required 30 days. SNAP timeliness charges have largely recovered from their nadir in 2023, due partly to a lawsuit and courtroom order that the Adams administration agreed to settle earlier this week. Nonetheless, the division continues to overlook its deadline on greater than a 3rd of money help instances.
At a Metropolis Council finances listening to earlier this yr, some profit recipients mentioned they confronted delays in getting their advantages as a result of their purposes weren’t recertified in time.
“After I tried to name HRA to handle the difficulty in 2023, I waited on maintain for 4 to 5 hours however solely to be hung up on,” mentioned Diana Ramos, an activist with the Security Web Venture and a SNAP recipient. “In September 2024, I obtained my SNAP advantages late once more,” she mentioned. She later realized that her recertification utility “was simply sitting on somebody’s desk ready for approval.”
Fewer frontline workers, much less expertise, lawsuits over delayed advantages — all these challenges have contributed to the division’s heavy reliance on time beyond regulation.
Advantages alternative specialists, who course of money help purposes, averaged about seven hours of time beyond regulation in 2025, roughly double the pre-COVID degree, payroll information exhibits.
Metropolis officers have lengthy argued that it’s cheaper to pay time beyond regulation than to rent new workers who’re entitled to well being advantages and pensions.
“First, town can declare that worker counts are decrease than they in any other case can be,” mentioned Thad Calabrese, a finance professor at NYU’s Wagner Faculty of Public Service. “Second, if the federal government pays an worker time beyond regulation reasonably than hiring a brand new one, it retains fringe profit prices — for medical insurance, pensions, and many others. — from rising, at the least within the close to time period.”
Whereas there’s a cap on the quantity of time beyond regulation earnings that can be utilized to calculate an worker’s pension advantages, Calabrese mentioned rising time beyond regulation spending can nonetheless drive up pension prices down the highway.
Some consultants see the ballooning time beyond regulation as a mirrored image of poor administration.
“When time beyond regulation balloons, it’s typically not signal,” mentioned Invoice Hammond, a senior researcher on the Empire Middle for Public Coverage. “Until there are exterior causes, like a pandemic, time beyond regulation ought to be a short-term phenomenon. It shouldn’t be an ongoing means of doing enterprise.”
Ana Champeny, vp for analysis on the Residents Finances Fee, tied the time beyond regulation surge to town’s broader challenges in delivering providers.
“Many metropolis providers aren’t doing job,” Champeny mentioned, citing her group’s survey discovering massive declines in residents’ satisfaction with metropolis authorities. “Understaffing is among the causes, however poor administration can also be an necessary issue.”
She added that town’s hiring system is “extremely bureaucratic” and sometimes gradual to fill vacancies.
Henry Garrido, government director of District Council 37, town’s largest public-sector union, blamed the persistent staffing shortages on the Mayor’s Workplace of Administration and Finances, often called OMB.
The union chief mentioned town’s finances workplace was leaving vacancies open to economize and offset prices from new labor offers. He recalled instances during which companies had made job provides to candidates that have been later rescinded or delayed by OMB, typically citing a scarcity of {qualifications}.
OMB didn’t reply to requests for remark from THE CITY and New York Focus.
