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Amid Border Patrol Pay Scandal, Lawmakers Consider Changes

Border Patrol Vehicle with flags
Michel Marizco
A Border Patrol vehicle at a memorial for a Border Patrol agent.

Michel Marizco

A Border Patrol vehicle at a memorial for a Border Patrol agent.

Lawmakers will propose legislation that will alter the way that U.S. Border Patrol agents are paid and are compensated for overtime, according to Government Executive. 

This comes after a report last week by the Office of Special Counsel alleged Border Patrol employees requested $8.7 million in overtime for hours they didn't actually work.

According to a letter sent on Oct. 31 to the White House from Carolyn Lerner of the Office of the Special Counsel, her office learned about the abuse from whistleblowers.

Among the revelations was that employees based in the Commissioner's Situation Room in Washington, D.C. claim two hours of overtime nearly every day, even though those payments are supposed to be reserved for irregular work that arises unexpectedly. 

One former employee alleged that agents often used those two hours for non-work activities, such as watching sports or surfing the internet.

Government Executive reports that Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, and Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, are working on proposals to overhaul the current pay system:

The congressional proposals…would alter Border Patrol agents’ work schedules from eight-hour to 10-hour shifts. Under this plan, agents would receive base pay for 100 hours per pay period, and anything exceeding that would be rewarded through compensatory time off.

Jude Joffe-Block was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2010 to 2017.