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The 53 top overtime recipients at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey during the first nine months of 2014 were all police. The agency began increasing the department's ranks last year, with preliminary overtime figures for October and November indicating OT was down.

(Tony Kurdzuk I NJ Advance Media)

JERSEY CITY — Despite recent signs that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey may finally be reining in runaway police overtime, the agency's top 53 overtime recipients during the first nine months of the year were all cops, agency records show.

Tops on the list was Officer Morris Cofield, a 21-year PAPD veteran who more than tripled his year-to-date base pay of $69,231 by logging $172,919 in overtime from January through September. Cofield was followed by another 23 department members who took home more than $100,000 in overtime for the first three quarters of the year.

The Port Authority's top ten overtime recipients for the first nine months of 2014 were:

•Officer Morris Cofield, $172,579

•Officer Elvin Erickson, $159,919

•Officer Robert Jersey II, $150,383

•Officer Walter Triesch, $141,067

•Sgt. Kevin Cotrell, $129,206

•Lt. John Stallone, $127,268

•Officer Lydia Childs, $124,867

•Officer Andrew Kurpat, $124,367

•Officer Carlos Naut, $122,048

•Officer Stephen Keown, $117,626

Except for one officer who received a one-time payment of $236,540 for a total take on the year of $275,361, Cofield was paid more than any other Port Authority employee for the first nine months of 2014, at $262,620, including overtime. He was among 13 agency employees — all police — who surpassed the agency’s executive director, Patrick Foye, in total pay during the first three quarters of the year.

Foye and Deputy Executive Director Debra Grammicioni receive the highest annual salaries among the agency's nearly 7,000 employees, at $289,667 each, followed by General Counsel Darrell Buchbinder, at $276,926. None is paid overtime.

Like Cofield, most of the top police overtime recipients are officers, whose annual base salary tops out at $90,000 after five years. But the department’s two dozen $100,000-plus overtime earners also included two police sergeants and five lieutenants, led by Sgt. Kevin Cotrell, who took home $129,206 in overtime in addition to base pay of $83,008 for the year to date, and Lt. John Stallone, whose $127,268 outpaced his base pay of $95,460.

While most of the top overtime recipients were men, the $100,000 club did include two women: Officer Lydia Childs, at $124,867 for the first nine months of the year and Sgt. Regina Womack, at $113,167.

It isn’t until the 54th position that a civilian Port Authority employee appears on the agency’s top overtime list: Alberto Gonsalez, a PATH maintenance supervisor, pulled down $85,095 in overtime in the first nine months of the year, outpacing his base pay to date of $67,666; followed in 55th place by another PATH worker, Joseph Wendelowski, a track foreman who took in $85,015 in overtime.

Agency-wide, the Port Authority was $35 million over budget for overtime pay during the first nine months of 2014. Total overtime spending during the January-September period came to $192 million, a figure that was 23 percent higher than budgeted projections.

Agency employees worked a total of 1.85 million hours of overtime during the first nine months of the year. It was the equivalent of 211 years — more than two centuries of overtime — an average of about 270 hours each, or nearly four full weeks per employee.

Port Authority police are charged with securing the region's air and sea ports, PATH trains and other round-the-clock operations, so it comes as little surprise that police overtime accounted for the bulk of the overruns so far in 2014, with $15.1 million in overtime payments, or 19 percent, above what was budgeted for the first nine months of the year.

The Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, has long argued that hiring more cops and promoting more supervisors would reduce overtime, and result in overall savings even when factoring in training, health benefits and other costs of adding employees.

"The PBA has been on the record, addressing commissioners meetings, making public comments though the media, for 14 years now, talking about the what is considered the Port Authority's police overtime problem," said Bobby Egbert, a spokesman for the union.

"We have always felt that the Port Authority was comfortable with paying overtime rather than new hires and the total package that comes with it."

Until recently. Intensifying criticism from elected officials and the public has prompted the agency to revise its thinking and increase the ranks of the police department since the arrival two years ago of Chief Security Officer Joseph Dunne, a retired NYPD commander.

About 450 new officers were hired from two cadet classes that graduated in August and in December 2013, the first graduating classes since 2009. Preliminary monthly figures indicate that total overtime hours were down 21.5 percent in October compared to September, and continued to dip by another 5.7 percent from October to November.

Porty Authority Chairman John Degnan welcomed the preliminary police figures, but warned that it would take time to significantly reduce the agency's overall overtime spending, noting that civilian overtime continued to run high among PATH and Aviation Department employees.

"It's helping," Degnan said of the new police hires. But, he added, "I'm not prepared to declare victory."

Degnan, whose position is unpaid, said the agency's human resources director would present an overtime-reduction incentive plan for its highest ranking managers, all the way up to the executive director, at the Board of Commissioners' February meeting.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow hin on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.