Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch has reversed himself on one of the most striking payroll cases in his department: the sergeant who logged 2,613 hours of overtime in a single year, he now says, was gaming the system.
From Defense to Investigation
Burch had previously defended the overtime pay of Sgt. Daniel Holifield, head of the sheriff’s office vehicle fleet, telling reporters earlier this month that no one had cheated the system. But after launching an investigation into Holifield’s overtime sheets — an inquiry prompted by Holifield’s arrest on 13 charges including first-degree theft of property and ten counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument — Burch changed his assessment.
“I was not correct when I said there is no way to cheat the system,” Burch said in a statement Thursday. “I launched an investigation into Daniel Holifield’s overtime sheets, and I found there is a way to cheat the system. Daniel Holifield cheated the system.” The sheriff said he shared his findings with the District Attorney’s Office and would make no further comment on the case.
The Numbers Behind the Case
Holifield collected $148,000 in overtime pay during 2022, according to an investigation earlier this month. Payroll records show his 2,613 overtime hours would have averaged out to 92-hour work weeks across 50 weeks if he took two weeks off — or 12.6 hours a day, every day of the year, if he never rested.
A Broader Overtime Picture
The sheriff’s office paid more than $6 million in overtime last year overall. Holifield wasn’t alone in extreme territory: another sergeant logged roughly 2,392 overtime hours for about $142,000 in extra pay, and 18 MCSO employees each topped 1,000 overtime hours — at least 20 extra hours a week — combining for $1.3 million.
Burch, who took office in January, said reforms already made to the overtime system cover how, when, and to whom employees report their hours, adding more oversight.