Some Napa State Hospital nurses earned more in overtime pay then they were slated to make in salary during the 2007-08 fiscal year, according to the California’s state auditor.

Nineteen of Napa State’s 489 registered nurses took home an average of $99,000 in overtime pay on top of their $78,000 salaries during the 2007-08 fiscal year, a recent auditor’s report states.

The report cited a similar situation at Sonoma Developmental Center, where 6 percent of the agency’s psychiatric technician assistants earned more in overtime pay than their $33,000 average annual salary.

Beyond the fiscal implications, the report states that “individuals working excessive amounts of overtime may compromise their own and their patients’” safety. Moreover, the state auditor reports that Napa State “did not always follow (its) overtime policies and procedures.”

Finally, the report stated that some state mental health agencies “allowed leave hours to be counted as time worked in calculating overtime.” A change in state law now prohibits this, but also allows for exceptions for union contracts finalized “subsequent to the law’s effective date.”

The document offers data about wages, staffing and other issues in connection with several state-run entities, including the Department of Mental Health — of which Napa State is a member — the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, California Highway Patrol, Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Developmental Services.

Nancy Kincaid, spokeswoman for the Department of Mental Health, said her agency is in compliance with state mandates about staff-to-patient ratios and how much overtime one individual can work.

Information in the report indicated that some Napa State nurses worked extensive overtime hours while others at the agency worked none. For example, one Napa State nurse who earned $733,000 in overtime pay over a five-year period logged as many as 51 overtime hours in a week, the report stated.

“There are people who can do that. They have measures in place that assess that individual,” Kincaid said, adding that direct supervisors at Department of Mental Health facilities make assessments about staffers’ ability to handle overtime.

Kincaid said the department has “not had a problem to date at Napa or at any of our hospitals” and “no issues” reported in terms of patient safety problems related to staff working extensive overtime.

As a result of California’s fiscal crisis, Department of Mental Health workers — as well as those at other state agencies — currently take three furlough days monthly. Kincaid said because state hospitals must provide 24-hour care while maintaining mandated staff-patient ratios, Department of Mental Health employees have an extra two years to take all their furlough days. For other state agencies, furloughs are expected to end in June of 2010, she said.

Kincaid was unable to say how much the department is saving as a result of the furloughs.

Staffing at the hospital was a topic during the late September criminal trial in which Napa State patient George Aaron Carver was charged with killing another patient, David Wengell. Carver was charged with manslaughter for attacking and killing Wengell with the end of a hair brush fashioned into a point. A jury found the killing was in self-defense and acquitted Carver.

Napa County Deputy Public Defender Joseph Solga said in an interview Thursday that on the day of Wengell’s death, at least one of several people on duty in the T-3 unit where the men were staying at Napa State were working double shifts.

“The budget has impact on people’s safety,” said Solga. “As a society, we have an obligation to care for the people there.”

In the wake of the state auditor’s report, Aaron McLear, press secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the governor’s office is instructing the Department of Personnel Administration — which negotiates contracts with state workers — to include provisions in union contracts to “investigate and halt any overtime abuses.”

The report also stated, however, that “the cost of hiring a new nurse at Napa and a new psychiatric technician assistant at Sonoma, including base salary and benefits as well as the cost of recruiting and training these new employees” is similar to shelling out overtime pay to “the highest-paid nurse and psychiatric technician assistant at the respective facilities.”

Kincaid said the Department of Mental Health has measures in place to make sure “overtime fraud” and problems with patient and staff safety don’t occur.

Kincaid said she couldn’t elaborate about current union negotiations regarding overtime issues.

“When an organization is in its open contract period, a large number of issues can be addressed, and this could be one of them,” she said.