PROVIDENCE, R.I ---Reports published by an locally-run website this week that some nurses and laundry workers at a state-run hospital have been earning six-figure salaries have reignited Rhode Island's perennial debate about the cost to taxpayers of overtime pay.
The Ocean State Current, an online publication of the nonprofit Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity founded by former GOP campaign strategist Mike Stenhouse, published a series of articles about overtime in state jobs.
The website reported that a registered nurse at Eleanor Slater Hospital in 2011 earned nearly $270,000 and a laundry worker there the same year earned over $123,000.
State officials on Friday, while acknowledging the problem of stemming overtime pay, said that the dollar amounts attributed to overtime in The Ocean State Current were, in some cases, inflated.