An audit has uncovered numerous problems with the Maryland State Police, including failing to adequately review previously approved handgun applications and improperly paying overtime to civilian employees, which investigators said in some cases negated savings realized through furloughs.

Auditors found one worker who earned six hours of overtime during a workweek that included eight hours of furlough time. With time-and-a-half, the employee was paid for nine hours of work, which auditors said "eliminated any savings" that the unpaid leave was supposed to have generated.

How widespread this practice was could not be determined Thursday, but the audit shows that at least some civilian employees managed to skirt the impact of the furlough even as sworn state troopers had to work with diminished pay to help make up a state budget shortfall.

This was possible, the audit concludes, because state police paid overtime for hours worked beyond an eight-hour day, which contradicts state law and regulations that require overtime to be paid for hours worked beyond a 40-hour workweek.

The auditors tested four workers at random and found that two had been paid overtime despite having worked fewer than 40 hours in a week. One of those workers took 32 hours of unpaid leave over two consecutive weeks and still earned 16 hours of overtime, the audit said. That employee got $10,000 in overtime last year, 30 percent of his regular salary.

In a response to the review by the Maryland General Assembly's Office of Legislative Audits, which was made public on Thursday, state police said they have brought their overtime rules into compliance with state law.

State police spokeswoman Elena Russo said she could not comment on the workers receiving overtime during furlough weeks until she learned their names and positions, so she could determine why the extra money was paid. Some civilian jobs need to be filled even during furloughs, and the audit does not identify civilian positions or employees by name.

Jim Dulay, a state trooper and president of the State Law Enforcement Officer Labor Alliance, said he is not surprised by the findings and noted that his troopers "would much rather have been furloughed. At least then we would have gotten a day off. Instead, we had to come to work making less for doing the same job."

Dulay concurred with Russo, saying for example that civilian dispatchers, who are essential, might have gotten overtime to fill shifts vacated by their furloughed colleagues. "From a management standpoint, it's probably cheaper to pay the civilian than to pay a sworn member to do a civilian job," Dulay said.

The audit also found that state police did not live up to their own benchmarks in handling applications from people seeking to buy handguns.

Of 2,946 permits approved in March of last year, the auditors said investigators double-checked 73 of them, or 2.5 percent, far short of their own rules that require 10 percent of all approved applications be reinvestigated each week to make sure they were done properly.

The auditors said they discovered numerous data-entry errors, including 15 by one clerk in the first six months of the year, but they said "no additional cases were selected for review and no documented corrective measures were taken to address those concerns."

Police acknowledged the problems and attributed them to reduced staffing and an increased number of gun permits being sought. A spokeswoman stressed that applicants had already "gone through one check" and that the problem was in reviewing a sampling of the approved applications. She said authorities are working to improve, but police do not believe anyone who should have been barred from owning a gun received a permit.

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