By Mid-Hudson News Network

KINGSTON — Employees in Ulster County departments amassed 6,700 hours of overtime related to the snowstorms of Feb. 23 and 25, according to county Comptroller Elliott Auerbach.

The total cost to the county is more than $213,000.

The largest expense, $99,152, was for more than 3,228 hours of overtime in the Department of Public Works, which plows county roads, Auerbach said in a report issued on Friday.

More than $47,000 in overtime was attributable to 2,406 hours of work to provide care for residents of the county-owned Golden Hill Health Care Center. The Sheriff’s Office had $24,172 in overtime for 446 hours of work, and another $17,422 went for 618 hours of overtime in the Department of Corrections at the county jail..

Another $25,373 went for other departments combined, Auerbach said.

Ulster County Executive Michael Hein said that, in normal times, his administration keeps tight control on overtime costs, making crises like the two storms easier to handle from a financial standpoint.

“That’s precisely why we aggressively manage overtime all the time, last year finishing hundreds of thousands of dollars under budget, ... so that we can be prepared for events like this without making them budget busters,” Hein said.

Hein has asked Gov. David Paterson to request a federal disaster declaration for Ulster County so that a substantial portion of the county’s storm-related costs can be recouped from the state and federal governments.

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